How to create linearized PDF using TeX?

Question

Is it possible to create linearized PDFs (optimized for "fast web view") using TeX with free software? (I don't have Acrobat available.)

It has been deprecated a decade ago, being incompatible with cross-referenced PDF 1.5 — see https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=694099 — Leandro, Mar 10 '17 at 14:01

score 31 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 14 '13 at 17:52

31

Use qpdf --linearize, not pdfopt.

qpdf uses a pdf library while pdfopt uses ghostscript and as such has a much larger footprint and is more fragile.

edited Jan 14 '13 at 17:52

Peeter Joot

answered Mar 09 '12 at 09:14

Martin Schröder

6

Would you also tell about the differences between the two tools? – Andrey Vihrov Mar 09 '12 at 09:16
@AndreyVihrov: done. – Martin Schröder Mar 09 '12 at 09:26

nickpapior · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-13T09:52:13.057

13

The fast web view is simply a method of allowing content to be displayed as it is being downloaded.

It will not, however, be fast. As such the name fast can be deviating from its meaning.

You should use qpdf --linearize as noted by @MartinSchroeder (pdfopt is deprecated as noted in the comments).

PDFcrop will also do that for you, however with additional work done, i.e. cropping your PDF.

edited Mar 13 '17 at 09:52

answered Mar 08 '12 at 12:18

nickpapior

1

pdfopt does the job. (In Adobe Reader, under properties it now says, "Fast Web View: Yes", that's all I wanted.) – fuenfundachtzig Mar 08 '12 at 12:29
2

pdfopt is not longer part of ghostscript. Instead of pdfopt the pdfwriter of gs provides an option -dFastWebView=true. So you have to use, e.g., gs -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dFastWebView=true -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf instead of pdfopt. – Schweinebacke Mar 10 '17 at 08:57

2 Answers2