Why is Word 2011 saving 2Mb PDF files when the docx is only 136kb?

Please help me with this. I am saving my resume as PDF. Word makes it into a 2.3Mb PDF file when the original docx is only 136kb. It is a simple one-page document without images or graphics, simply two chosen fonts - Arno Pro and Gill Sans.

I have tried using the normal save as PDF button in the print menu as well at using PDFWriter. All give the same result. When I open the document on my PC and print to PDF via BullZip, it comes out at 36kb.

What is Mac Word 2011 doing!?

Henrik Söderlund

Posted 2012-11-11T08:16:39.723

Reputation: 641

2It's worth noting that all *x formats (e.g. docx, xlsx) are actually zip compressed files so they will be smaller then some other native formats. – Origin – 2012-11-11T08:25:56.553

try if you can select the text and copy paste it from your large pdf file, or if the text has been rendered as an image. – TheUser1024 – 2012-11-11T12:13:09.907

everything copies well from the PDF. Even into a text editor. All the letters and words show up nicely. – Henrik Söderlund – 2012-11-11T13:11:19.553

What happens if you save (not print) the document on PC? – Trolzen – 2012-11-11T14:48:17.373

Maybe this helps: http://www.techiecorner.com/1234/how-to-reduce-pdf-file-size-in-mac/ but it doesn't answer the question.

– Trolzen – 2012-11-11T15:01:33.427

@Trolzen Same result when saving as PDF in the normal dialog. Thanks for the link, but it produces a same size PDF regardless of those Quartz options... – Henrik Söderlund – 2012-11-11T15:28:49.197

Word documents are by default rendered at 72dpi. PDFs, on the other hand, are rendered at 300dpi (by default). I would think there is an option in Word when you save as PDF to modify the resolution of the output file – nagyben – 2014-03-19T01:01:15.100

Answers

Maybe it embeds fonts into pdf or converts all symbols to curves.

Trolzen

Posted 2012-11-11T08:16:39.723

Reputation: 173

Word 2011 for Mac does not support font embedding. The symbols thing I do not know of? – Henrik Söderlund – 2012-11-11T08:33:20.073

By "symbols" I meant characters. – Trolzen – 2012-11-11T14:23:05.337

aha, I see. I am able to copy and paste all "symbols" from the PDF, so there are no curves involved then correct? – Henrik Söderlund – 2012-11-11T14:30:51.610

That's corrent. – Trolzen – 2012-11-11T14:44:22.953

I'm afraid I can't tell you why it happens, but my roommate once had the exact same problem with his couple-page document, only the resulting PDF was something ungodly like 30 MB. He gave me the docx, I simply opened and saved it as PDF using Word for Windows (using the same settings), and the resulting PDF was less than 1 MB. He said the PDFs looked identical and the text was equally selectable. Go figure.

So if you have a friend with Windows and Word 2010 or 2007, you might be able to save yourself a lot of time trying to work around it on your Mac and move on with your life. (I wouldn't say that if it were a more regular occurrence, particularly since I'm now a Mac user myself.) :-)

Alternatively, other things to try:

Use Mac OS X's ability to "print" arbitrary things to PDF. To do so, in Word, press Command+P, then clck the "PDF" drop-down menu in the lower left corner of the dialog and select "Save as PDF". I don't believe this performed any better when my roommate tried it, but perhaps it would in the case of your document.
If you have a copy of Adobe Acrobat, use it for the conversion. If any piece of software would "get it right", I'd think that would be it.

Terry N

Posted 2012-11-11T08:16:39.723

Reputation: 31