Word to PDF: context menu gives a smaller PDF than printing from Word

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  • #63473
    kana48
    Participant

    Good morning,

    I state that the last version of PDF24 programm works great.

    I have observed an abnormal behavior when saving Microsoft Office Word documents.

    If I launch PDF24 printing of a Word file (506 MB approximately), directly from the context menu (see image PDF24Printing 1.png), the final size of the PDF file is much smaller than PDF24 printing launched directly from the drop-down menu of the Microsoft Office Word application (see image PDF24Printing 2.png). Thus, the result is 18MB against 103MB.

    Due to typographical reasons, both PDF file are in maximun print quality. But despite that, images in the 18MB PDF file are less defined than in the 103MB PDF one.

    At the moment, this is not a functional issue. However, I would like to understand why the PDF sizes are so different.

     

    Best regards.

    Giampaolo

     

    1  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TIojXVUfWqdLZr7jAhbxDLgMFdH2PJK6/view?usp=drive_link

    2  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f0Xc5M70w8TCodv3pM1lLT9vhVK7zG4H/view?usp=drive_link

    #65490
    PDF24 Support
    Moderator

    Hello,

    the two ways create the PDF differently:

    • From the context menu of a Word file, PDF24 lets Word itself export the document as PDF (method "OLE Export"). Word decides how much the images are reduced, and the quality settings of PDF24 are not used. That is why the file is much smaller and the images are less sharp.
    • When you print from Word to the PDF24 printer, the pages go through the printer and PDF24 creates the PDF with its own quality settings. With maximum quality the images stay larger.

    If the context menu should also go through printing, open the PDF24 Settings (e.g. in the PDF24 Toolbox with "Open Settings"), go to Preferred Methods and set Convert Word to PDF to "OLE Print". Word then prints the document to the PDF24 printer instead of exporting it.

    Word files can also be converted online: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/word-to-pdf

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