How to Generate "Smaller" PDFs

[colparker]

Hey guys, I'm on a Mac and my producer has been sending me PDFs of his Gantt
charts and they just devour my machine - each page has to build, layer after
layer. They remind of incredibly hi-rez Adobe Illustrator files and they just
peg my CPU, to the point that I find them almost unusable. Is there a way for
him to create smaller PDFs via Project? I'm guessing that the PDFs he's
creating have a ton of information embedded within, but all we really need
are glorified screen shots. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jim Aksel]

If he has a PDF generator installed, he can print the mpp file to PDF
directly from Project... nothing Project can do to shrink the size. You may
want to try a filtered view or displaying less columns, less date range on
the output, etc.

If all you need is a screen shot, you could use the picture wizard in
Project to capture data. That will make a gif image you can paste into
another document.
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Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[colparker]

I think this is a print settings issue, since PDFs are essentially a print
function. Unfortunately I don't have a PC or MS Project, so I'm not sure how
to direct my project manager to tweak the settings.

 

[Jim Aksel]

There is nothing in Project that he can do. PDF Writers install themselves
as printer drivers which become a service available to Windows. He may be
able to adjust his PDF writer.

Also, if the project is large with a lot of detail, many columns shown, and
a very long duration being shown as days, this could be a problem. For
example, if you have a 100,000 line schedule showing all tasks and resource
assignments with a graph showing days from January 2006 to December 2023
(each day shown) ... that makes for a hefty file.

So, the choices for the PM appear to be:
show less information
tweak his PDF tool
Buy himself a MAC
Buy you a PC.