Smaller Panther PDFs - Colorsync option allows Quartz Shrinking (JPEG Compression)

Mac OS X Panther (10.3.2)

Dan Frakes Benjamin Drew wrote: 'How come the PDF's made in Panther are so large?...'

You could use any of a number of PDF 'shrinking' utilities, or even Acrobat. However, Panther has a built-in feature that can significantly reduce the size of Panther-generated PDF files during the creation process:

1. Access the Print dialog normally, but don't use the 'Save as PDF' command yet.
2. From the options pop-up menu in the Print dialog (the one that normally says Copies & Pages by default), choose ColorSync.
3. From the Quartz Filter pop-up menu that appears, choose Reduce File Size.
4. *Then* use the 'Save as PDF' command to create your PDF. (If you plan on using this option often, you may want to first create a new preset using the Presets pop-up menu in the Print dialog; this will allow you to create PDF files using this option in the future by simply selecting the preset before you create the PDF.)

This option won't reduce the size of PDF files as much as some of the third-party utilities on the market, but in some cases it works wonders... and it's free.