gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials » pdf printer http://www.ghacks.net A technology news blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:51:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 When Working With PDF Printers, Watch The File Sizeshttp://www.ghacks.net/2011/06/20/when-working-with-pdf-printers-watch-the-file-sizes/ http://www.ghacks.net/2011/06/20/when-working-with-pdf-printers-watch-the-file-sizes/#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:12:01 +0000 Martin Brinkmann http://www.ghacks.net/?p=46721 Roman just posted an interesting observation about pdf printers on the Ghacks forum. He noticed that the output file size of pdf printers differed considerably. In his own test, he noticed a difference of nearly 400% between the smallest file size and largest file size. While that’s just been a single test, it shows that users may do good to test various pdf printers if file size is a criteria for them.

Roman printed a webpage to pdf document that included text and some images. I decided to investigate the issue further, and came to similar conclusions.

The following pdf printers were used in the test:

You can check out additional pdf printers over at the overview at Freeware Genius’s blog.

dopdf

I have tested two different documents, first a Word document from SEOMoz, and second the forum page containing Roman’s forum post.

The results

Word document, original file size 439 Kilobytes

Bullzip PDF Printer: 350 Kilobytes
DoPDF 7: 317 Kilobytes
PDF Creator: 348 Kilobytes
Primo PDF: 512 Kilobytes

Web page, original file size 450 Kilobytes

Bullzip PDF Printer: 256 Kilobytes
DoPDF 7: 212 Kilobytes
PDF Creator: 240 Kilobytes
Primo PDF: 172 Kilobytes

The differences are not nearly as wide in range as Roman’s findings, but they may still be considerable. Especially the Word document differences are noteworthy. While Bullzip PDF Printer, DoPDF 7 and PDF Creator remain between 317 and 350 Kilobytes, Primo PDF breaks out resulting in a file size increase of 150 to 200 Kilobytes.

It is rather surprising that the pdf printer with the largest file size managed to create the lowest file size converting the web page. The three other printers are again close to each other, with DoPDF a little bit better than the other two.

Some pdf printers may come with options to reduce the file size of the resulting pdf documents, for instance by compressing images. All tests have been conducted with the default settings.

This test concentrates on file size, and there may be other factors playing a role for users, pdf quality a top one. A difference of a few hundred Kilobytes makes no big difference if the documents are stored on a desktop PC, they can however have an impact if the pdf documents are stored and accessed on mobile devices like ebook readers or smartphones with limited space and processing capabilities.

My suggestion would be to install at least two different pdf printers on the system for best results. Ideally two different printers, for instance one that utilizes Ghostscript (which many pdf printers do) and another one that does not use Ghostscript.

Have you been working with pdf printers? If you did, tell us about your experience in the comments.

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2011/06/20/when-working-with-pdf-printers-watch-the-file-sizes/feed/ 8 PDF Creatorhttp://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/04/pdf-creator/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/04/pdf-creator/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:33:49 +0000 Martin Brinkmann http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/04/pdf-creator/ PDF Creator is an Open Source software program to create pdf documents by adding itself as a virtual printer that can be used to send and convert documents into the pdf format. The virtual printer has the advantage that PDF Creator can be used by virtually any application that can access printers in the Windows operating system.

PDF Creator is compatible with most Windows operating systems including the beta of Windows 7. The application makes use of Ghostscript to provide the pdf functionality. The pdf software generator comes with a few additional features that makes it interesting. It can created PDF/A documents, create encrypted pdf documents and merge multiple documents into one pdf document.

PDF Creator can also create different file formats like PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS. Another interesting option is to install the PDF Creator application to run on terminal servers.

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/04/pdf-creator/feed/ 12 Create PDF Documents out of any Windows Applicationhttp://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/16/create-pdf-documents-out-of-any-windows-application/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/16/create-pdf-documents-out-of-any-windows-application/#comments Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:07:55 +0000 Martin Brinkmann http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/16/create-pdf-documents-out-of-any-windows-application/ I regularly have to create pdf invoices which some companies seem to prefer over other forms of documents and I have been using doc to pdf online converters until now that would convert the Microsoft .doc file into the Adobe .pdf file. I have two major problems with this procedure however.

The first is that i have to upload my invoice to a website so that it can be processed and converted into the portable document format. This is a privacy issues and I love my privacy as you all know. The second is that websites come and go and there is no telling if the website with the converter script will be there the next year.

I therefor decided to try some local solutions to create pdf documents without having to purchase Adobe Acrobat. WinPDF Writer is such a solution. It creates a virtual printer that creates pdf documents out of any text document that you create in Windows applications.

It’s working flawlessly with Microsoft Office and I suppose it would work with other applications as well. I just have to select the virtual printer to create the pdf document.

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/16/create-pdf-documents-out-of-any-windows-application/feed/ 11 Free Fast Virtual PDF Printerhttp://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/08/free-fast-virtual-pdf-printer/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/08/free-fast-virtual-pdf-printer/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:35:13 +0000 Martin Brinkmann http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/08/free-fast-virtual-pdf-printer/ I’m currently using the Screen grab extension in Firefox to save complete websites as pdf files to read them later or print them eventually. Screen grab has some limitations, mainly size of the website that should be saved and that it only works in Firefox. I sometimes use Opera or want to convert other documents such as emails to pdf.

DoPDF looks like the perfect replacement for Screen Grab. It is a freeware application for Windows and takes only a few megabytes of hard drive space. It adds a virtual printer to your installed printers in Windows and you can choose to make it the default one. Please make sure that the Print Spooler service is running during installation, otherwise the setup of the virtual printer will fail.

Once installed you can select the virtual printer in every print screen with the option to configure the output further. It is possible to define width and height or use predefined formats for the output. The last step is to simply select a filename and location for the newly created pdf file.

It will be saved in that location on your hard drive and displayed when the creation finishes. I decided to stress test it a little bit. The creation of a 41 paged text document took only two seconds. I uninstalled Screen grab immediately after seeing this incredible results.

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/08/free-fast-virtual-pdf-printer/feed/ 6