Creating Package Components from Documents - Adobe Acrobat and PDF for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction - page 34

2. Choose Settings > Edit Adobe PDF Settings to open the Standard - Adobe PDF Settings dialog box
(Figure 4.15).
3. The dialog box lists headings in the left column; click a heading to display its set of options in the
right pane of the dialog box. Both the General and Standard headings show the same General
options.
4. Adjust the settings as required for your custom file, described in following sections.
5. Click Save As; type a name for the custom settings in the resulting dialog box and click Save.
Note: Custom settings files can be shared like other files for uniform conversion results across a project. You can
email a file to another user, who can include the file with their other .joboptions files.
General Settings
The General settings, shown in Figure 4.15, define basic characteristics for the conversion. The default
compatibility version is Acrobat 5.0 (PDF 1.4); specify any compatibility from Acrobat 3 to Acrobat 7, as
used in the example. The older the PDF version selected, the larger the pool of users that can view the
document. However, the older the version, the fewer options for fonts, color, and security. In engineering
use, Acrobat 5 is suggested as a minimum, as earlier versions have limited use with CAD drawings. Other
common settings include:
x Object level compression. Compression of objects combines small objects into compressible content.
Choose from Off, Tags only, or Maximum options. If you leave the compression set to Off, structure
and tag information is usable in Acrobat 5; choosing either of the other options allows information to be
usable in only Acrobat 6 and 7.
x Resolution. The default resolution is set at 600 dpi; you can emulate the resolution of a printer for
PostScript files by adjusting the figure. Higher resolution usually produces higher quality files, more
steps in a gradient or blend, and larger file size.
x Page Range. A common error is to specify a page range. Unless the settings are designed for a one-time
use with a specific document, reusing the settings can yield erroneous results, as only the specified
pages are converted.
x Embed Thumbnails. Enabling Embed Thumbnails adds to the file size unnecessarily; do not select the
option unless the output is designed for older program versions.
Image Settings
There are several common image settings that may be need to be modified if you are working with specific
types of image (Figure 4.16). Common changes are made to downsampling, compression and quality; you
can also define a policy to process images consistently:
x Downsample. Pixels in images with higher than the specified resolution are combined to decrease
resolution in a process known as downsampling . For images where the user is likely to zoom in to a
high magnification, such as a map, a high resolution usually produces more legible images.
x Compression/Image Quality. Select individualized settings for color, grayscale, and monochromatic
images. For monochromatic images, you can select anti-aliasing to prevent jagged edges.
x Policy. Click the Policy button to display a dialog box to specify whether to ignore, warn, or cancel a
job when processing an image that falls below specified resolution.