doPDF vs FreePDF - size and quality

[Gluek]

Hello! I tried to use latest doPDF as alternative for FreePDF (http://shbox.de/) - doPDF smaller, faster and run fine on Windows 7, yeah!
But: FreePDF make much smaller PDF files with better images in it. Please compare:

(main forum page saved in FreePDF 4.02 - latest; and doPDF 6.3 build 311 - latest)
(doPDF) PDF Forum - doPDF.pdf │267.8 K

(FreePDF) PDF Forum - doPDF.pdf │87.50 K
Also you may check files here:
(doPDF) PDF Forum - doPDF.pdf

(FreePDF) PDF Forum - doPDF.pdf
As you see, size of file generated with FreePDF 3 (!) times smaller than doPDF file.

And images looks better:
doPDF:

FreePDF:

[Claudiu (Softland)]

Hi,

The comparison you're doing is a bit misleading for several reasons:

- you have only printed one page using one browser and compared the results; you should try at least 2 other browsers (the same forum page prints perfectly with dopdf via Firefox, the images are sent badly by IE), and you should alternate text only pages with mixed pages

- you don't mention the fact that freepdf is based on ghostscript so basically that's the one doing the conversion, as with any other ghostscript-based pdfcreator; dopdf uses his own internal conversion engine and this is why the size is larger when handling images

- you didn't do a comparison conversion from other document types, word/txt, alternations of text and images
What I'm saying is that this is a subjective comparison.

[Gluek]

Thanks for your answer.
I not only printed one page, this is just example I was uploaded.
Here another one, no images, just few words of text:
Almost empty page Word document (only "123 test" text on it), printing to pdf:
123test_dopdf.pdf │20.66 K

123test_freepdf.pdf │ 5.61 K
Ok, if I try to open 123test_dopdf.pdf and re-print it on FreePDF printer:
Wow! I get even smaller document:
123test_dopdf_reprint_freepdf.pdf │ 3.83 K
So, do GhostScript cut of all wasted space from pdf, or why?

[Claudiu (Softland)]

So now it's only the matter of size, as the quality is the same for instance when printing from Firefox.
As for the size, make sure that when you do the test with the text file you set the resolution for dopdf at 72dpi and not 300dpi as it is default. Probably freedpdf has the resolution set lower (for the web) and that's why the difference in size. I have created a pdf from a word document with 123 test text in it and dopdf created a 3Kb file when setting the resolution to 72 dpi - you can download it here to see: www.dopdf.com/download/test/test-123.pdf

So practically it's smaller than the one freepdf created.

[Gluek]

Tried to set 72 dpi, but file size still 20 Kb, not 3 Kb. As I see, you have another version of doPDF:
doPDF Ver 7.0 Build 317 (Windows Vista Enterprise Edition (Service Pack 2) - Version: 6.0.6002 (Platform: x86))
May you share it with me to test?

If it not public yet, you may mail me: [email protected]

[Gluek]

Tried older version of doPDF 5.3.240 and get just 2.74 Kb "123 test" file! Also, older version can be installed silently (with doPDF53240 /verysilent /norestart), so I think I will prefer it.

[Gluek]

Just tried version 7 (7.0.320), file size same as v6, so I'm stay with v5.