[reportlab-users] PDF Report size too large

[Jean-Yves F. Barbier]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:15:14 +0000
Asif Jamadar <asif.jamadar at rezayat.net> wrote:


> I'm using Reportlab tool to generate dynamic PDF.

> The generated PDF consist of 1 or 2 pages but the size this PDF

> reached to 5 MB. How can I decrease  the size of the generate PDF.

> 

> I want to decrease the size to max 500 TB. IS there any way to

> accomplish this thing in reportlab?


This is finally a good question, indeed - so I made some tests.

Greping RL code shows that it use zlib; if it's a good &
fast compression technique for communications it is not 
as good for file compression.

I didn't wanted to modify RL code, so I found this way:
* create an uncompressed PDF w/RL
* transform it to PostScript
* re-transform PS to PDF

It lowered an already RL compressed PDF from 258kB to 74kB
(3.5x less) - but the chances to lower to 500kB from 5 MB 
are very low...

I do it with utilities included into the ghostscript package:
pdf2ps & ps2pdf - Total time taken by the following script is
~1.7s on my old AthlonXP-1600+:

=========

#!/bin/sh

# Transform a PDF to PS and rebuild a hi compression rate PDF from PS

# Efficiency: An already compressed PDF generated by Reportab was 258kB:
#             one jpeg + ~1/3 page text, org jpeg size: 113kB
#             After processing it is 74kB (3.5x less)

if [ -z $1 ]
then
    echo ""
    echo "PDF High rate recompression"
    echo ""
    echo "      Usage: RECOMPRESS_PDF.sh myPDFtoRecompress.pdf"
    echo ""
    echo "      NB: Destroy the original PDF."
    echo ""
else
    ORG=$1
    PS=${ORG}.ps
    # PDF => PS
    pdf2ps $1 ${PS}
    # PS => PDF (org)
    ps2pdf ${PS} $1
    # Remove PS file
    rm ${PS}
fi

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