MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - are PDFs smaller in size than EPUBs in general?

phillipgessert · 11-18-2022, 11:01 AM

I assume your PDF lacks the cover; and the subcover, which I assume is the title page, is possibly not an image at all in that one. Could just be live text, vector paths, things like that. Additionally, 5 embedded fonts for a plain mystery…this is kind of a weird leap, but was this epub made for you by someone using InDesign? Asking because that setup seems a little unusual for pretty much any workflow other than that one. If so, there are a bunch of other variables that could be in play. I believe InDesign converts certain types of floating objects into images on epub export, for example. And I know you said there are only two images, but if there’s something by like a fleuron, it might be in there over and over again as a bunch of duplicate images in the ebook.

20 MB is still pretty big even with all that stuff in mind though. I’m betting that cover and title page are bigger than they have to be.

Edit: another weird one, but it’s not fixed-layout, is it? I could see that being bigger than reflowable, though I honestly have no clue how their file sizes compare to PDF.

11-18-2022, 11:01 AM	#4
phillipgessert Addict Posts: 318 Karma: 3200000 Join Date: Oct 2015 Location: Madison, WI Device: Kindle 5th Gen	I assume your PDF lacks the cover; and the subcover, which I assume is the title page, is possibly not an image at all in that one. Could just be live text, vector paths, things like that. Additionally, 5 embedded fonts for a plain mystery…this is kind of a weird leap, but was this epub made for you by someone using InDesign? Asking because that setup seems a little unusual for pretty much any workflow other than that one. If so, there are a bunch of other variables that could be in play. I believe InDesign converts certain types of floating objects into images on epub export, for example. And I know you said there are only two images, but if there’s something by like a fleuron, it might be in there over and over again as a bunch of duplicate images in the ebook. 20 MB is still pretty big even with all that stuff in mind though. I’m betting that cover and title page are bigger than they have to be. Edit: another weird one, but it’s not fixed-layout, is it? I could see that being bigger than reflowable, though I honestly have no clue how their file sizes compare to PDF. Last edited by phillipgessert; 11-18-2022 at 11:03 AM.