How to distribute large PDF (or convert?)

davolente · Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 361 Location: Kent, UK

I have a 16 meg PDF of a poster designed for A3 size, that was originally made on a MAC. I need to distribute it somehow but it's too big for most e-mail systems' mail boxes. Free "drop" services only keep files for a limited time and that's a tad laborious anyhow. Thought about converting it to a jpg, but how and would the quality suffer? Can't find any free converters out there for that job and on-line converters generally have a file-size limitation. Don't really want to buy anything, as this is only a once-a-year job for a charity classic car show I'm involved with. Any ideas, folks?

bkil · Joined: Jan 12, 2009 Posts: 9

FTP server, either on your desktop(impractical), or rent it, or rapidshare. web space might do it too. http://www.filedropper.com/ might help you

davolente · Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 361 Location: Kent, UK

Thanks for that. I had actually briefly (VERY briefly!) considered using a server on a spare PC, as I already use a simple server on my main machine:
http://www.rejetto.com/hfs/?f=intro
This works well for transfering the odd file, especially when on-line with Messenger or similar (works quicker than Messenger's file transfer) but, as you say, a tad impractical for continuous use.
I've gone for Filedropper, as that's as good as any it would seem, with a link, using their code on the website, for anyone who wants a poster from that source and notifying others of the link by e-mail.

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 1242

Could you possibly COMPRESS it enough? (ZIP-?) Or split the file - I DO believe there are free file splitter. Sorry I can't think of any right off.

But I think the "server" idea is the best approach - if you do your own, I hope you understand how to "harden it down" (secure it)

goretsky · Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 11:09 pm Post subject:

Hello,

I believe Microsoft's SkyDrive service provides 25GB of storage free of charge. That might be a solution.

As Baby_Tux mentioned, it would still be a good idea to compress the file with a file archiver (.7z, .RAR, .ZIP or other format you prefer) in order to reduce the amount of time required to download the file.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 207 Location: New Jersey

rmtracy · Joined: May 04, 2004 Posts: 3

davolente · Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 361 Location: Kent, UK

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks, but a friend of mine who runs Linux managed to convert the PDF to a 2 meg-odd jpeg, which is a bit more manageable.
His quote:
"There are a load of odd command line conversion
programs on the system by default so I had a quick look and there are
various pdftoxxx programmes. One is pdftoppm which created a ppm version at
about 12 megs. I then opened it in the GIMP and saved as jpg. max quality."
Next question from me will be "What is ppm?"
The result is really rather good. I have reduced it by 50%, to also use it on the website, as it was too big for the browser when clicked to enlarge. Too much horizontal scrolling. Probably don't need to distribute it now! Printing from it is pretty much, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from the original PDF. The direct link, if anyone wants to have a look is:
http://www.darlingbudsclassiccarshow.co.uk/PosterHalf.jpg
So.........it seems that Linux DOES have its uses!
Be interested in any more comments - especially from Linux users.
Cheers everybody.

bkil · Joined: Jan 12, 2009 Posts: 9

No reason to split it, 16MB isn't too big to download.[/quote]

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 1242

It ought to be obvious that I am a linux user. But I must admit, I really didn't give it much thought as to a solution because most on here don't know about it enough to be of any use.

As for splitting the file, I was referring to the email limits. There, you most likely will have to If it can't be reduced in size.