How to maintain image quality in pdf?

[krs]

I'm in the process of creating a pdf from a text edit rtf file.

Tried the export option in text edit, also a pdf via the print menu and also tried with Adobe Acrobat.

Turns out when using the first two options, the images which are nice and sharp in the rtf file end up a bit out of focus making the dimensions in the sample image hard or impossible to read.
Acrobat gave me an error message when I tried to save the rtf file as a pdf.

Any tips what I could try to get better image quality in the pdf?
The original image is on the left, pdf version on the right to give an idea what I'm talking about.
Images are all 800 pixel wide and 72 dpi resolution

PS: Original is better on my monitor that what shows up in the attachment

 

[ferrarr]

How are you acquiring the original file? Scan? Camera? Download? Why the need to change file type?

Original vs converted usually always loses quality of some sort?

 

[krs]

The image was originally taken with a camera by a friend of mine and posted in a forum.

We want to take that forum thread text and the images that were posted in that forum thread to eventually craete a pdf of the text and images.
The text was saved as an rtf so we could edit it, the images were downloaded from the forum, they were jpgs.

When I combine text and images in the rtf file, everything looks good - text is nice an clear and so are the images.

But when I convert the final rtf (modified text and images) to pdf, the images loose more quality that I expected, especially noticeable where there is text in the image (like the dimensions in the example).
Maybe I just have to live with that.
But I have seen pdf documents with embedded images that were a lot more clear and crisp, so there has to be a way to accomplish that.

 

[krs]

I have a few pdf converters/editors I bought over the years.

Just tried PDFelements pro; had great hopes, but using that the images are even worse than using the Mac options.

I wish Adobe Acrobat would work - that would probably give me a baseline of the best I could hope for.
But when I try that I get a message that there was a Mac system error (-1409)

 

[ferrarr]

The image was originally taken with a camera by a friend of mine and posted in a forum.

We want to take that forum thread text and the images that were posted in that forum thread to eventually craete a pdf of the text and images.
The text was saved as an rtf so we could edit it, the images were downloaded from the forum, they were jpgs.

When I combine text and images in the rtf file, everything looks good - text is nice an clear and so are the images.

But when I convert the final rtf (modified text and images) to pdf, the images loose more quality that I expected, especially noticeable where there is text in the image (like the dimensions in the example).
Maybe I just have to live with that.
But I have seen pdf documents with embedded images that were a lot more clear and crisp, so there has to be a way to accomplish that.

They may have started with higher quality images to begin with?

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I'm in the process of creating a pdf from a text edit rtf file.

Turns out when using the first two options, the images which are nice and sharp in the rtf file end up a bit out of focus making the dimensions in the sample image hard or impossible to read...

Here's the thing...PDF's are a compressed format. The algorithm for file size vs. graphic quality is fixed normally in the Mac OS. However, you can tweek the ratio if you want better graphic quality by using the ColorSync Utility. The resulting PDF will be larger, but the graphic quality will be higher (in the same way you can tweek the size vs. quality settings when creating a JPEG in a good graphics program):

http://www.hoboes.com/Mimsy/hacks/quality-reduced-file-size/

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/33702/compress-pdf-with-adjustable-ratio

http://scrollinondubs.com/2007/04/05/quick-pdf-file-size-reduction-on-a-mac/

 

[krs]

Thanks Randy,
Fantastic links,
Thank-you so much!

 

[pm-r]

However, you can tweek the ratio if you want better graphic quality by using the ColorSync Utility.

That is a great piece of information Randy, and I never realized that ColorSync Utility had all those options other than just color management. Neat...


- Patrick
=======

 

[krs]

Here I thought I had an alternative to the pdf that provided nice, sharp images.

Just send my friend the rtf instead of converting the document that I'm creating to a pdf.
After all, any Text or Word program will open an rtf file, right?

Tried that with a partially completed version, well turns out that to add images to the rtf, the Mac converts the rtf file to an rtfd file and there seems to be no way for a Windows PC to open that file.
At least that's what google tells me.
One learns something new pretty much every day!

PS: Just tried something else in case anyone runs into this issue of creating a text file with images that Windows users cannot open.
I saved the rtfd file with Pages and then exported the Pages document as a Word document.
That way Windows people can open it using MS Word or any of the equivalent apps.