Re: Re: OT: Electronic episodes

From: John Hughes <nysalor_at_...>
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 10:49:52 +1000

>

> However, format and artwork. And, sadly, _size_. As a part of my job,
> I had to convert a set of tech manuals from Word (gah) to PDF format.
> The drop in size was pretty dramatic from 3.4 m to 114 k. If artwork or
> sophisticated formatting is involved, the size of the file can get
> rapdily out of hand.

Yes, size can be a problem, specially when you're producing print rather than screen optimised work - 96-150 dpi for graphics. I did a lot of work with large text/colour graphic/diagram files when we converted the Garhound Contests. The 40 page sections were each approx 1 Meg, which I considered about the top for a download file. The full page, colour, high density map came out at approx 700K.

By contrast, I've just done an 80 page novella with a high density colour cover and miniminal internal flourishes that sits comfortably at 450 K - less when zipped.

Text dominant pieces can come out very small indeed.

Part of the trick is keeping your font range small, or using common (boring but legible) fonts that don't have to be included with your document.

There are other tricks to keeping size down, put its always a compromise between size and quality. In the Garhound Contests, print considerations came first, so the files were larger. We split the scenario into four files (Scenario/Narrator Background/Player Handouts/Map) and made some of the extra art available on a seperate web page.

If people are thinking of distilling PDFs, I can recommend the Adobe ebook standards, (which I've now adopted for almost everything I distribute online). They are available (as a PDF!) from the Abobe website under ebooks.

John