Loading documents into ARIES How to reduce your file size

You received an error message? When uploading documents into ARIES users need to be aware that larger sized documents may fail to load. As an approximate guideline, documents larger than around 11 megabytes are likely to fail to load. Note that if you do receive an error message then the document to be loaded must be given an amended name before you try again. Naming Conventions (note that this is the actual documents name, not the description you enter in ARIES) Before giving advice on how to reduce file sizes, please note that any document loaded must be given a unique name. For contracts and grants the document should include the ARIES grant id plus something which is not used more than once e.g. 18999_Authority_to_Apply For human ethics the documents should include the protocol number with an underscore _ replacing each slash / plus the document name e.g. 2008_171_Bloggs_Application For animal ethics Pauline Pilcher will normally load the document using the ethics number with the full stops removed e.g. F.BTZ.30.08 will become FBTZ3008_ (plus document name) For publications some abbreviated part of the article name and the researchers name expressed uniquely Answer 1: For an existing pdf file, open the file using Adobe Acrobat version 8 or 9. The instructions are slightly different in each version. These instructions are based on Version 9:

a. Go to Document menu and select Optimize scanned pdf. At this stage

keep it simple and just select OK. In some cases you will get a message Running Scanned Image Optimization is not possible on this document if you get this use one of the other answers below. Otherwise the job will complete with no other action required. Save it. [If you have already tried to load this document in ARIES you will have to rename it before attempting a reload] This step is all you have to do in most cases however, other answers may result in even smaller file sizes. b. If you want to compare the size of the old file with the new, use Save As and rename the document. c. To compare, look at the Properties of the document either, for an opened document, go to the File menu and choose Properties, or for a closed document, right click on the file name and choose Properties. d. Benefit often the optimized document is better than the original. However, it is wise to check that this is the case for images and drawings contained in a pdf. e. Improvements on this process: a. Use the Advanced menu and select PDF Optimizer.

b. In the Image settings you can reduce the ppi limits or reduce
the JPG quality in relation to compression. c. Experiment with other settings but only change the Fonts settings if you know what you are doing by removing embedded fonts and relying upon the default fonts for the person receiving the pdf, the pdf may look very different from the original. Is it worth it? A test done when updating this advice had the following results: a. Original file (scanned as an image) went from 14.4 megabytes to 2.7 megabytes. b. A smaller document went from 582KB to 160KB.

f.

Answer 2: For an existing pdf file or Word file: This answer is based on Windows applications but should be the same on Apple computers (THIS USUALLY REDUCES THE FILE SIZE BY 50%): a. Open an existing pdf in Adobe Acrobat (Standard or Professional), or open a Word document in Microsoft Word b. Go to the File menu, select Print c. Instead of choosing your normal printer look for a printer called Adobe PDF d. Select this printer and then select Properties e. Under the tab Adobe PDF Settings note the Default Settings option f. Choose the drop down option next to Standard g. Choose Smallest file size h. Click o.k. i. Click o.k. again j. When the option Save PDF File As appears give the file a new name (in line with the naming conventions) k. Save. Once the file has been saved you can check its size by right clicking and choosing Properties Answer 3: Splitting a file into two documents: a. If the document is a Word document but you are happy with conversion to pdf format, then follow the steps in Answer 1. This will usually create a file whose size is much less than half the size of the original file b. If you want to keep it in Word format then follow the standard methods for creating two files e.g. create a copy, rename it, delete the first half of the document in one file and the second half of the document in the other file c. If it is a pdf file and it is as small as you can make it already, you can use the Documents tab in Adobe Acrobat to extract or copy pages to a new document d. Reminder use the naming conventions. Answer 4: For hard copy documents being converted to pdf look at your scanners settings a. If you have two scanners check if one makes much smaller pdfs we have one scanner which may produce a file of 9 megabytes, the other scanner (with the same dpi settings) will produce a file size of less than 4 megabytes b. Check the default settings and choose: DPI 200 Colour Grayscale

Standard pdf setting (the Compact pdf setting is worse than the standard setting) REMEMBER you can adjust all the relevant settings for individual jobs if you need colour/better quality. Does this make a difference? We had one document which came to us as a pdf which was over 20 megabytes in size. After printing and re-scanning, we ended up with a file size of 1.86 megabytes (using a Canon scanner). Updated June 2010 BSG RO