Image capture question(s)

[Bill Gates Jr.]

When I copy a three page letter as one document, using image capture, ADP, at the lowest dot setting, they resulting adobe doc is still about 8.2 MB. How can I get the document down to a more reasonable size?

 

[Slydude]

What kind of document is it? Meow importantly, what will ir be saved as? do you need a PDF, Word document, or something else?

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

It's a three page letter I received and need to forward to my sister in Nevada for her action. It can be sent as a word document, maybe even a text document as long as she can read it. I scanned it using Image Capture as an PDF document but it doesn't have to be that as long as all three pages can fit in one document. PDF is the only way I know of to put all 3 pages in one document. I know I can scan each page as a separate file, but would like to have all pages in one document. Not sure if there is another way to do this without using Image Capture.

Pete

 

[pm-r]

Have you tried this suggestion shown here:
Reduce the File Size of PDF Documents with Preview in Mac OS X
http://osxdaily.com/2013/12/12/reduce-pdf-file-size-preview-mac/



- Patrick
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[chscag]

It's a three page letter I received and need to forward to my sister in Nevada for her action. It can be sent as a word document, maybe even a text document as long as she can read it.

Attach it to an email message to her and specify use "Mail Drop" when asked. That way when she receives the mail all she has to do is click on "Mail Drop" and the Word document will be downloaded to her Mac or PC.

 

[Slydude]

Looks like Patrick and I had the same idea. Lots of folks forget about those filters in Preview. I've never tried the idea Charlie suggested. Nice one though and well worth a try.

 

[Rod]

There is also Dropbox and Google Docs for oversized documents. Dropbox allows you to send a file link via email that the receiver can use to download the document and if you try to send a oversized document from the Google Mail web site it will suggest using Google Docs and just follow the instructions. It works in much the same way as Dropbox.

 

[chscag]

Rod's idea is also good. However, just so everyone knows... mail drop works with iCloud and does not count toward your iCloud allocation. However, any of the suggested methods is a lot less troublesome than what the OP is trying to do.

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

Patrick- tried your suggestion twice. Both times the reduced file size was blurry. First did it at 360 dpi then at 720 dpi. Got a file size of 24 Meg! It reduced to about 88K but was blurry. Not sure why the file size is so large. I'm only scanning 3 pages.
Charlie - Never used Mail Drop or Drop Box before. I'll try Mail Drop.

Pete

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

Okay, Don't think i can use Mail Drop. I use yahoo mail as my email program. Never tried using Safari Mail. Don't know how to or if i can load Mail Drop in yahoo.mail. I could use Drop Box i guess, but wouldn't the person on the receiving end of my email also have to have Drop Box in order to access what I put into the box? Should I download Drop Box from their website or use the App store?

 

[Slydude]

The pages have probably been scanned as images rather than as editable text documents. If that's the case then the file size is going to depend upon wha format the graphic is saved as. .jpg files will take up less space for, for example, than .tiff files.

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

You're probably right. Thing is I don't know how to scan them as editable text images. But in this case it doesn't matter as all I need to do is pass on the letter. No editing needed. I did use preview and rather then using 'reduce file size', used Black & White. It reduced the file size from 24Meg to 6.3 Meg. Tried using Grey Tone (someone suggested Grey Scale...which i don't have) and the file increased to 24.3 Meg.
I thought an ADP document, being text, would take up less than a jpg image. Especially since I would have to send jpg images for each page. I was trying to link everything in one document. Fooled me.

Pete

 

[ferrarr]

Your scanner should have come with some type of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. If not, and you did scan the file as a PDF, then, you could use the web to convert to Word doc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition
http://www.onlineocr.net

 

[Slydude]

I thought about OCR but hadn't suggested that because it can be a very time consuming process. Sometimes OCR is very accurate and other times it isn't depending upon such things as quality of the scan, font used in the document, complexity of layout etc.