Reduce PDF size (censhare Client)

Context

The Downsize PDF feature is available within censhare Client and censhare Web.

Prerequisites

The "Downsize PDF" feature has to be configured by your censhare administrator first. It can only be used for assets whose master file has the MIME type PDF document.

Introduction

There are different use cases when PDFs are imported into or created by censhare. One example is a PDF at the end of a notice after the conversion magazine's production process. These PDFs can be extremely large and may require smaller PDFs. This may only apply to certain users or workflows. A smaller PDF reduces traffic when content is exchanged with other systems or published on a media portal. Otherwise, transfer might take too long.

For these reasons, censhare provides for downsizing PDFs within censhare Web and censhare Client. You can choose the action manually for every asset that has a PDF as master file with MIME type PDF document. 

Your censhare administrator might have configured that PDFs are downsized automatically. For instance, this can happen if you assign a certain workflow step or a certain user group as workflow target to a PDF asset. If this is true, you will notice that after the conversion a new Downsized PDF file is attached to the asset. 

Your administrator can also define that the conversion is only done if the PDF exceeds a certain file size. For the manual action, there is no such limitation intended.

You cannot influence the parameters for the conversion yourself. This has to be done by an administrator. You share the same parameters with all other users.

Please be aware, that the result of the downsized PDF depends on the original PDF. Not every PDF is equally suited for downsizing. Depending on the PDF, the result may even be larger than the origin. 

Note: The "Downsize PDF" feature is a simple solution for your basic needs. If you need a solution with a broad range of functionality, connect the censhare system to a respective external solution.

Downsizing PDF

1. In the censhare Client, go to the asset in question in the asset list. 

2. Select Downsize PDF in the Server actions menu, either on the top of the Client or from the context menu. You can also select more than one PDF asset, if you want to execute the action for them at once.    

Note: Depending on the size of the PDFs and the amount of files to convert, the calculation might take some time.

The downsize is started. You receive a warning: "This operation can take a long time". Click CANCEL to stop the action at this point or continue with OK. 

You are notified for each asset if the downsize was successful or if it failed. In both cases, the IDs and names of the Downsize PDF assets are stated in the same dialog window.

Download the downsized PDF file

To download the downsized PDF:

1. Select the according assets in the list view of the censhare Client.

2. Select the Export function from the context menu. A dialog opens with all available file types for the selected assets. 

3. Select Downsized PDF and click the Export button for the download.

The assets are downloaded.

Search for downsized PDFs

When censhare has calculated the downsized PDF from the master file of an asset, the new file will be added with the pdf-downsize file type. You can use this file type to search for all assets that have a downsized PDF attached:

1. Open a Search dialog and go to the Expert tab. 

2. Click the "+" icon and select File type as search parameter in the new field.

3. Select Downsized PDF as search value and click OK.

If the Downsize PDF process fails

The downsizing process may fail for several reasons:

• Something might have gone wrong with the conversion itself.

• Something might have gone wrong with the configuration of the downsize functionality.

Conversion issues

A typical reason for a failure can be: You have started the Downsize PDF server action for an asset that is edited and therefore locked. So, to reconcile the problem, for instance, save and close the asset to remove the lock and start the conversion again. 

Configuration issues

If there is a problem with the configuration, a different notification window will be shown: Application error and display more information about the problem. For instance, if the server action does not find the respective configuration asset, the windows contain among other information the following: Configuration asset not found. In this case, please, contact your administrator.

Result

For the selected assets an additional "Downsized PDF" file has been created and attached to the respective asset. The centrally defined parameters in censhare have been used for the calculation of the PDFs.