How can I reduce file size when making PDF from PowerPoint?

[Melinda]

I'm using Acrobat Distiller to create PDFs of PowerPoint presentations, and
the resulting files are enormous-- take forever to display and print. Are
there ways around this? (Happens with all images, not just transparent ones.
Have already tried Distiller's image compression.)

 

[Sandy]

I'm hearing of this happening more and more. Do you think
it's related to Acrobat 7 (vs. earlier versions of
Acrobat)?

 

[Melinda]

Thanks for the fast response, Steve. I'm not at work right now, so I don't
have exact figures. But just as an example, I made a test presentation of
only 8 slides so it would be quick & easy to work with. Not sure how big that
is, but the resulting pdf was nearly 3 MB. We've run through this process in
the past with a variety of presentations-- some have had metafile graphics,
some gifs, and some bitmaps. It seems to be more or less the same with all.
Number of graphics per page varies by author, but the ones my boss did, which
tend to have only a couple per page (those would be .bmp), are nearly as
large & slow as the more graphics-heavy ones (in which screenshots have been
pasted directly to PowerPoint).

We're currently using Acrobat 5, printing directly to Distiller, and using a
4-per-page layout through Distiller, not through PowerPoint.

Thanks much,
Melinda

 

[Melinda]

Sandy,

I'm using Acrobat 5, so I'm guessing it's a problem for the earlier
versions! :-D

 

[Melinda]

Steve,

Well, the powers that be have decreed that even the test presentation can't
be sent externally. Proprietary and all, y'know. But your suggestion of
removing one graphic at a time has generated some interesting leads. I'm
working at a bit of a disadvantage here-- the presentations in question are
not my work, and many were created a while ago, so it's hard to determine
just how the graphics were brought in. I'm beginning to have a suspicion that
even those graphics which exist as .gif files on our network may have been
pasted directly from some other application rather than inserted via
PowerPoint's menu. I've been able to reduce pdf size by about 40% by removing
them and then inserting the gifs. Of course, nobody wants this to be the root
cause when you're talking about dozens of presentations with a couple hundred
slides apiece!

Anyway, I'll keep plugging away at this as I have time. May revisit the
issue in a future post. Thanks so much for all your help!

Best,
Melinda