Skip to main content

Configure Word’s Acrobat tab settings for higher quality output

By

You can tweak the output quality of PDF files if you have Adobe Acrobat X Standard or Adobe Acrobat X Professional installed. What Acrobat does (among other very cool things) is that it hooks up Word with Adobe PDFMaker, and a corresponding Acrobat tab appears in the ribbon.

word-acrobat 
If you’re into the technical side of things - Adobe PDFMaker is a macro which passes jobs to Adobe Distiller, which in turn outputs PDFs according to the .joboptions file supplied by PDFMaker. The Acrobat tab is a COM object built as PDFMaker’s user interface in Word.

Hence, when you’re configuring settings under to Acrobat tab you’re actually creating a custom .joboptions file. To do so:

1. Click on the Acrobat tab to see relevant commands.

word-acrobat-pref

2. Click on Preferences. The Acrobat PDFMaker window will open.

3. Click on the Conversion Settings drop-down link (this is set to Standard by default). Select High Quality Print (or Press Quality if you’re primarily looking for superior print quality). Then click on Advanced Settings.

acrobat-conversion settings

4. Next, click on Images in the left pane.

acrobat-conversion settings-hi quality

5a. Image-related settings will appear in the right pane. Change the Downsample method to Average Downsampling for both color and grayscale images if the images you insert in Word are mostly screenshots or diagrams. However, this should be set to Bicubic Downsampling if you mostly insert photographs.

5b. For both kinds of images I recommend setting Compression to Off, although in practice the end results don’t seem to be any different than having Compression and Image Quality set to Automatic (JPEG) and Maximum respectively. (Note: turning compression off hides the Image Quality drop-down list.) 

acrobat settings-saving

6. Click on Fonts in the left panel. Font-related settings will appear in the right panel. Leave only the Embed all fonts option checked. This will force the saved PDF to use actual fonts under all circumstances, and generate a warning when this fails.

acrobat-conversion settings-hi quality-fonts-embed

8. Click on Advanced in the left panel. In the right panel:

8a. Ensure Convert gradients to smooth shades is checked.

8b. Check Convert smooth lines to curves if your documents are usually going to have technical drawings with lots of curves (such as CAD images).

8c. Check Save original JPEG images in PDF if possible.

8d. Ensure Preserve EPS information from DSC is checked.

acrobat-conversion settings-hi quality-advanced-settings

9. Click Save As at the bottom of the window.

10. Provide a File name for your custom .joboptions file, then click Save. From now on Adobe Distiller is going to use this file for creating PDFs.

acrobat settings-save

Bonus tip: Consider saving different .joboptions files for your common document tasks – for example for documents with technical drawings, magazine pages, etc. Also, experiment with the different settings to see which suit you.

Check out: my personal documentation software picks.

Comments

  1. KathyFebruary 14, 2013 at 6:08 AM

    This is GREAT thanks heaps, but my new pdf crteated by following all this is around 150 M...any suggestions? :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. bored_product_guyFebruary 15, 2013 at 5:58 AM

    Hi Kathy, you are likely getting such a huge file size because you are inserting large images in your Word file. Resize images in an image editor such as PhotoShop and THEN insert them. DON'T replace an existing image in your Word file (2010) - delete the existing image, and then insert the resized one. Typically you shouldn't insert images which are over 1 MB - ideally, try to keep them smaller.

    Proceed to save your Word document as a PDF. Next, open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and go to File > Save As. Try the 'Reduced Size...' and 'Optmized...' options and see which results in the smaller file size (with acceptable image quality) for you.

    Hope this helps!

    ReplyDelete
  3. OuncerMarch 31, 2014 at 10:34 PM

    After reading tons of forum posts about how theres nothing you can do, I find this 3 part tutorial and it works great! Thank you so much!

    ReplyDelete
  4. katMarch 17, 2015 at 7:19 PM

    Thank you so much! I have tried so many different ways to keep the quality and nothing worked until I read this! You're awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  5. bored_product_guyMarch 18, 2015 at 1:39 AM

    Thanks guys :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Proud DaughterOctober 30, 2015 at 1:04 AM

    Thank you. Trying it right now. This has been driving me insane. Have tried several different methods and each time my images were downsampled. I was about ready to give up. Can't tell you how many links and documents I have clicked on to get info, including CreateSpace, without success. The SAVE AS advice is priceless.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Preserve image quality when saving from Word to PDF

By
When you are saving a Word 2007 or 2010 file as a PDF, there is always a significant loss in image quality. Pictures look blurry, weathered or soft – quite simply unfit for a professional document. The objective of this site is to help your images look as good as possible when you’re saving from Word to PDF. Compare the following images (click to expand): Before        After The screenshot on the left shows a PDF that has been saved from Word at default settings. The one on the right shows a PDF saved at custom settings. Both screenshots have been taken using the same content, and at identical zoom and resolution settings. As you can see the one on the right looks much better. What’s more, we can make images in PDFs look even better when saving from Word! How do you do it? Step 1: Stop Word from compressing images Step 2: Ensure maximum image quality while saving in Word Step 3: Set Word's Acrobat settings to save images in high quality Also check...
11 comments
Read more

Prevent Word from reducing image quality

By
By default MS Word attempts to compress images. To stop it from doing this, 1. Go to File > Options . 2. Click on Advanced . Relevant settings will appear in the Image Size and Quality area. 3. Uncheck Discard editing data , check Do not compress images in file and Set default target output to 220 ppi. 4. Click on the drop-down link bearing the name of the current document (New Microsoft Word Document (4) in the following screenshot). Select All New Documents (or leave at the current setting to apply for the open document only).   5. Click OK . Next stop: ensure that Word still isn’t compressing your images! Check out: my personal documentation software picks.
11 comments
Read more

Stop Word from compressing images during save

By
Even after you have unchecked the Do not compress images in file option (see my previous post ), Word will still try to compress images during saving! To stop this from happening, do the following: 1. While saving your current file, instead of clicking Save (or pressing Ctrl+S), click on Save As (or press F12). 2. Once the Save As window appears, click on Tools . 3. From the Tools drop-down list click on Compress Pictures .   4a. Make sure Delete cropped areas of pictures is checked. Set the target output to Print (220 ppi) . 4b. For Word 2007 users only: the Automatically perform basic compression on save option will additionally appear. Make sure it’s unchecked. Unfortunately, you will have to uncheck this option every time you save a file! That is, unless you follow step 6 below. 4c. Click OK to save your updated image compression settings. 5. Exit the Save As window by pressing Save to save your document, or Cancel to exit without saving. If you have Acrobat...
9 comments
Read more