Idea Delivered Partially

The ability to apply image compression was added with XPP 9.6 which should alleviate the request to use GS for compression purposes. Direct to PDF already has the ability to set the PDF version.

Direct PDF - add GhostScript post processing step

The new Direct PDF option is great.
It allows you to create UA pdfs, create bookmarks in a much simpler way, bypasses the sometimes gigantic PS files and it is quick.
However is does have a downside as well. 
You have no control over the created PDF.
You can not set the PDF level (it creates PDF 1.7 files) and you can not set the compression level (it can create gigantic files as it simply copies the graphics as found in your library).

Now to overcome this problem I have integrated a GhostScript post processing step in which I can define both the PDF level and the compression level (screen, print, prepress, default) of the final PDF.

It would be nice if XPP could integrate that postprocessing step as an option to the Direct PDF print command.
This could be done by some extra fields in the PDF tab (level: 1.3. 1.4 ... 1.7 - compression: screen, print, prepress, default) 
The GhostScript postprocessing step only needs to be run when the user selects 1 of these extra fields.

Since GhostScirpt is already part of the standard delivery, no extra software is needed.
And like this the user gets a lot more control over what kind of PDF is produced (without having to revert back to distiller or ghostscript)

It could also be an easy solution to another outstanding idea 
see : https://community.sdl.com/ideas/contenta-ideas/i/ideas-xpp/direct-to-pdf-to-meet-final-output-requirement-we-need-to-be-able-to-select-what-type-of-pdf-will-be-created-pdfa-pdfx
As apparently you can use Ghostscript to convert a PDF into a PDF/A or a PDF/X 

Bart Terryn
  • in reply to Steve Piercey

    Great apparently I forgot about this.
    Suggestion: move it to the print interface

    More importantly: the compression thing.
    Compression was the actual reason for launching this idea.
    As an example we have a PDF that is around 3MB when produced through distiller (with compression set to printer).
    That same PDF becomes 17MB when produced through DirectPDF.
    When I use the GhostScript compression step, I can reduce that to the original 3MB

    Since these PDFs have to distributed electronically the 17MB version is unacceptable.

    Now one could say: hey why don't you use distiller then?
    Well because the bookmarks have been set up using the CSS bookmark commands (in fact the whole style setup is CSS).
    So there is no 'easy' way back to distiller...

    Let's rephrase the idea:

    When using DirectPDF:
    - please change print dialog so we can select what level of compression we want to obtain (screen, print, prepress, default, no)
      this could be accomplished by adding an extra GhostScript based postprocessing step
    - please change print dialog so we can select what type of PDF will be produced (PDF/X, PDF/A, etc)
      this could be accomplished by adding an extra GhostScript based postprocessing step
    - please change print dialog so we can select which level of PDF we want to produce (1.4, 1.5,....)

  • Did you know that you can set the pdfversion in 'divpdf' with the '-pdfversion' option?  From "xyhelp divpdf"
    -pdfversion Set the PDF version compatibility level (default=1.7)
    Possible values: 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.7ext3, 1.7ext8, 2.0
    NOTE: Setting an illegal value will produce an error.