I am trying to convert very large .dgn file sizes to a smaller pdf size to make uploading easier on my company's website. I have be able to reduce it a significant amount by changing the dpi, but I am not very familiar with MicroStation, so I am looking for some help. Does anyone know of a way to reduce the file size? I have been using Adobe and Bluebeam to do this.
Unknown said:I am trying to convert very large .dgn file sizes to a smaller pdf size
MicroStation files contain 3D models. They store data, such as 3D coordinates, in 64-bit precision floating point numbers. DGN is a very different format to PDF, which uses a different representation for 3D geometry. It's not clear what you mean by 'convert very large .dgn file sizes to a smaller pdf size'.
You can print from a MicroStation to a PDF? Have you tried that?
Regards, Jon Summers LA Solutions
Unknown said:I've run into this problem before, usually when there is a large air photo attached to the file, and when the plot has to rasterized because of transparent overlays. Use some combination of the following settings to reduce the pdf file size. Change the driver resolution (sounds like you already tried this). If your plots are rasterized, there is a setting in this group called Rasterized Quality Factor. Lowering this can also reduce the file size. Also, under the Base Properties tab, pick Raster Printing, and lower the quality factor. You can try different values to find out what setting reduces the file size and still get acceptable quality. You also may try setting Enable Optional Content to Off (this turns off creation of levels in the pdf).
As to raster change resolution, I suggest you try to do this at print time at first through the printer dialog box settings when your doing testing rather than edit the driver settings as its easier to understand ( if your unfamiliar with mnst) and you can just keep tweaking by the slider bar or value typed and it doesnt change the driver then when youve found the optimum setting you can visit the driver and make the change once..
Lorys
Started msnt work 1990 - Retired Nov 2022 ( oh boy am I old )
But was long time user V8iss10 (8.11.09.919) dabbler CE update 16 (10.16.00.80)
MicroStation user since 1990 Melbourne Australia.click link to PM me
regards / Thomas Voghera
Unknown said:I tried all of the suggestions that you and John gave me and neither seem to really reduce the size. Thank you though! This is so frustrating. I'm thinking maybe I need to get on a forum for Adobe and Bluebeam to see how I can reduce the sizes once they are printed to a PDF.
if doesnt make much difference try compressing or optimised in Full adobe acrobat or Bluebeam etc many tools around
If your putting on website an not intended for printing then make the paper size really small like A4 but he scale really big 1:50, 000 etc for maps this is still small
Connect r17 10.17.2.61 self-employed-Unpaid Beta tester for Bentley
Unknown said:I've been fighting this same issue for years. Can't seem to find the sweet spot for drivers on the Bentley side. Using Acrobat to 'SaveAs Reduced Size' PDF really helps. Lately I've been getting higher quality rasters (GIS aerials) and have started to use Acrobat 'SaveAs Optimized' to retain more pixels for quality. Optimized gives you some more exacting sizing for the raster portions of the PDF.
Aha! you have large rasters ie aerial photos, look inside your pdf driver the default compression is ZIPPED, if your using rasters a lot change this with the pulldown to JPEG it will compress further.. I sued to do what your doing using external Adobe to compress, but it just uses the JPEG compression equivalent , so if you used the default zip internal compression setting you'll get big difference after with adobe compress.. but if you change the setting to jpeg the file will be compressed to max already and the adobe compress wont change much unless you have changed the resolution in the adobe compression in that case change the resolution of the file and the raster too in the pdf.pltcfg... I example driver I sent has all these settings but you can tweak them further.. .. I would also turn off line line weights or remap to weight 1 as a supper compressed lower res pdf will be zoomed in a lot by viewers and the lineweights also get magnified... ( check with control 5 toggled in adobe reader when you've zoomed in a lot you will see what i mean) .. BTW if you make new drivers just copy paste rename and edit the new renamed one so you always have the pristeene original to go back too, plus it makes sense to a have a logical name for those special pdf drivers...