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Post your comments for Why Does My Scanner Produce Huge PDF Files? here

[mctavish]

It may be a driver problem. Five years ago I bought an Epson Perfection 1660 PHOTO Scanner for use in my home. For years I used the recommended TWAIN Driver and came out with PDFs in the 2 to 4 MB range. Going to black and white and lowering the resolution didn’t help much.
Recently, I got a Canon scanner at my office. The PDFs, even those in color and with a 400 DPI resolution, were under 300 KB per page, and the screen and print quality was as good as or better than were the Epson scans.
So I switched to the WIA driver on the Epson and that fixed the problem. The Epson scans are now about the same size as those from the Canon. I haven't had to use OCR.
As an aside, the Epson is a good scanner, but the software is horrible.

[SJCoulter]

I use eDoc Printer Pro to make a smaller file size copy of the scanned pdf file. I can then delete the original huge scanned file.

[mjd420nova]

Within the software for the scanner are the settings for what format, size and resolution you wish to use for scanned items. These should be set for your personal preference and adjusted for what your end usage of the files will be. Example: For e-mailed photos, use a maximum of 200DPI and save using .JPG format. Most e-mail will look good with only 75DPI but cannot be enlarged without pixelation. For real photos I use 1200 DPI and save as a .JPG format. This yeilds a very large file size but can be enlarged to poster size without distortion. I only do this with real FILM photos as they are optical in nature and I wish to capture the full range of colors and resolution.

[TechBeginner]

Thanks and sorry it took me so long to respond.

At the risk of asking a dumb question: Any idea how I change to the better driver? (WIA vs. TWAIN). I'm gathering that one driver is better than the other for shrinking the size of the scanned PDF. Lexmark's Email Tech support couldn't solve my problem. Maybe I'll break down and actually use the phone numbr.

Thanks again.

KC

[mctavish]

The way to change drivers is unique to your scanner. You may try to re-set up the scanner. During the setup you may be offered a choice of drivers. Of course, try something different from what you are using now. And that's what it will be - trial and error.



Your original post seems to have been lost from the PCW site. At least I can't find it. I assume that you are using Windows. Windows XP has a program for setting up scanners, but my recommendation is to work through the software that your are actually using to operate your scanner, probably software that came with it. Look for something like "TOOLS" or "OPTIONS" on the scanner menu. Hopefully, that will lead you to a setup procedure.

Certainly, try the Lexmark phone support, if it won't cost you anything. But keep your expectations low. Many company's phone (and email) support is very poor.

Have you looked in your owner's manual? I don't have any Lexmark products, but most manufacturers will have owner's manuals and other support online. You would want to look for subjects like "Setup" and "Drivers."

In addition to PCW, another good free help site is Computing.Net. People much more knowledgeable than I am will reply to your post.

Good luck.

[mctavish]

Well, it isn't a driver problem afterall. And it isn't a brand/manufacturer problem. It is a settings problem.

Without going through the long story of how I got there, I discovered that the WIA driver delivers the same size files as does the TWAIN driver. What was making the difference in file size was a setting reached by clicking the "Options..." button in the "Save to File" dialog box that comes up when saving a file as a PDF. There, using the PDF software program OmniPage Pro 15.0, I am offered three compression settings. Choosing the "Lossless compression (Best quality)" setting gives a large file regardless of which computer, scanner, or driver I am using. The other two settings, "Medium compression" and "Best compression (Smallest file size)" yield much smaller PDF files.

Of course, different softeware programs likely will have somewhat different options. Using OmniPage, the "Medium compression" seemed to be the best compromise. That setting saved a full color page to a 263 KB PDF file, whereas the "Lossless compression (Best quality)" setting yielded a 2.20 MB PDF file. The smaller file didn't look quite as good, but is was pretty good.

The same file saved in the TIFF Format with LZW compression (lossless) was 34.0 MB, and I don't understand that.

I hope this helps, and I'm sorry about taking you down the wrong path.