George, a recent OOW visitor, asked me a very interesting question today. He was asking how he could lower down the file size of his 20-page scanned PDF document so that it would fit into Gmail’s attachment limit of 10mb. At first, i though it was a dumb question but then when I looked closely, it was indeed a confusion that needs to be cleared out! Apparently, george is scanning something into PDF with 300 PPI (Pixel per Inch) Resolution but the output file size is too large. He also could not get any resolution lower that 300 PPI. Is 300 PPI the minimum resolution?
The reason why George can only use 300 PPI is that the output file type that he is using is the PDF searchable which uses the OCR software when scanning. Now, looking at the PPI table below it is clear that when scanning with OCR or editable text the minimum or default PPI is 300. That is the reason why he could not scan at lower PPI.
Basically, in order for George to be able to send his scanned PDF document he would then have to use the normal PDF as the output file type. This type of document scanning does not use OCR software and would then scan the document as images and then processes the images of the pages into a single PDF file. By not using the OCR software, George can then be able to use resolutions as low as 75 PPI.
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Resolution:
75-150 |
Description:
Low resolution Saves disk space Creates images |
Used for:
Images that you intend to use online |
| 200 | Default for scanning pictures | Grayscale images that you intend to print |
| 300 | Editable-text setting | Scans with editable text that you do not intend to print |
| 400 | Editable-text setting | Scans with editable text that you intend to |
| 600 | Setting for black and white images | Black and white images that you intend to |
| 1200 and up | High resolution Requires large amounts of disk space Causes slow computer performance |
Professionally printed items (brochures or posters, for example) |