Document scanners and multifunction devices for capturing, archiving and forwarding of documents can be found in almost every company today. All modern devices are able to generate documents in color and as PDF. Color document capture and processing is becoming more common and popular. The disadvantage: The file of a color scan with the usual JPEG compression for color is many times larger than a comparable black and white scan. JPEG compression is good for color images/photos, but JPEG compression is very poor for text due to the artifacts created by the compression. Text needs sharp edges to be legible. With JPEG compression, these edges become blurred, making smaller fonts in particular illegible.

The PDF-MRC (Mixed Raster Content) compression solves the problem – it creates very small PDF files from color scans and enables texts to be read easily.

MRC compression is also known as “Hyper Compression” and uses the method of image segmentation. It is very efficient and well applicable for typical business documents consisting of text and images that are scanned in color.

 

The PDF-MRC compression in brief:

The essential point is that with PDF-MRC compression, page areas of the scan are divided into separate images – so-called “layers“. Each of these layers is adjusted accordingly and optimally compressed. The PDF format makes it possible to display the original representation of a page from these separate levels as an overall picture. See also Wikipedia >>>

The 4 levels of PDF-MRC compression:

• Background layer (color image) – contains the background, background “smudges” and all other graphic elements which cannot be identified as text, line graphic or image.
• Image layer (set of color images) – contains all color images of the page.
• Mask layer (black and white image) – contains the text and line art.
• Foreground Layers (Picture Palette) – contains the information about the colors of the masking layer, thereby saving the color of the text and line graphics.

PDFCompressor with PDF-MRC compression:

The current PDFCompressor component used in PDFCompressor-CL, -FM and -CS-Service, as well as in our other applications (e.g. AutoOCR, FileConverterPro…), now also supports PDF-MRC compression. PDF-MRC compression is applicable for color documents/scans, but not for black and white and grayscale scans.

Supported file formats: PDF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, JPEG2000, JBIG2, ICO, PCX, GIF, WMF, EMF – for file format with multiple pages, a multi-page PDF is automatically generated.

Predefined PDF-MRC profiles: PDF documents are “rendered” before MRC compression with the set resolution (150, 200, 300dpi), i.e. in converted to a color image and then subjected to MRC compression. To make it easier for the user, the essential MRC compression settings can already be selected as pre-defined profiles. “MRC – text only” or “MRC – text and images” for 150 or 200dpi resolution.

   

Example – PDF-MRC compression:

 

PDF-MRC Application:

PDF-MRC compression is specifically designed for compressing document color scans and allows file size reduction by a factor of 8 or 10 compared to traditional JPEG compression. “Normal ” PDFs that only consist of lines and text can also be MRC compressed, but it should be noted that the PDF is rendered before MRC compression, i.e. it is converted into an image file in order to then be output as MRC PDF. The text previously contained in the PDF is reinserted into the MRC PDF. Normally it only makes sense to subject scanned color files or PDF files that have been OCR processed to MRC compression.

The text display in an MRC-PDF file is clearly legible and without artefacts, even with small fonts, despite a low resolution of 150-200dpi. The PDF-MRC compression is therefore the ideal solution for archiving color documents generated in the company, whereby the file size is not significantly larger than that of black-and-white scans, the texts remain legible and the advantage of the color representation exists.

PDFCompressor Component Test & Example application >>>

Innovations PDFCompressor:

• Three compression levels preset: For color / grayscale images with JPEG2000 there are now 3 preset compression levels (high / medium / low) to choose from. The compression behind each level can also be configured – 1:60 / 1:30 / 1:15 for color and 1; 30 / 1:15 / 1:13 are preset for gray levels. The higher the compression, the smaller the files and the lower the image quality.

• Summarize subgroups of fonts: If a large number (e.g. a few thousand) of individual documents are combined to form an overall PDF document and each of the individual documents contains the same font as a subgroup, then all of these fonts are present in the overall document. Since it is always the same font that is embedded several thousand times over, the entire document is unnecessarily bloated. The PDFCompressor now has a function to recognize multiple existing subgroup fonts, to summarize them and simply to embed them in the output PDF. This can e.g. a 5000 page PDF that was previously 117MB in size will be compressed down to 13MB.

• The user interface of the PDFCompressor component has been revised. The settings and configuration options are now presented much clearer.

• The standard profile “SmallestPDF JPEG2000 & JBIG” has been optimized and adapted to generate the highest possible compression and the smallest possible PDF files.

PDFCompressor Component Test & Sample >>>

With the PDFCompressor-CL command line version 1.2.0 several variables are available for the output file name.

• @DATE@ – date
• @TIME@ – time
• @ORIGNAME@ – output file name
• @ORIGEXT@ – output file extension

This makes it possible to process all files in an entire folder structure and to store the files in the same folder structure and e.g. add an addition to the original file name.

“C:\Program Files\PDFCompressor-CL\PDFCompressor-CL.exe” /src=”c:\temp” /dst=”c:\temp\@ORIGNAME@_compressed.@ORIGEXT@” /config=neu /subfolders=true /log=”c:\temp\log.txt”

 

Download – PDFCompressor-CL – Optimizes and compresses PDFs >>>
Download – Readme / Help – PDFCompressor-CL >>>

The current version of the PDFCompressor can now also convert CMYK and 32-bit color images to RGB, as well as 24-bit color images, so that PDF compression by the PDFCompressor is possible.

In addition, there is the possibility of displaying and logging information about the compression (before / after, in kB / in percent, total and by area), as well as the individual steps carried out during processing.

 

   

• PDFCompressor Component Test & Sample application>>>
• PDFCompressor-CL commandline application>>>
• PDFCompressor-FM Folder Monitoring >>>
• DropCompress – compress PDF per Drag&Drop >>>
• PDFCompressor Service CS incl. REST / SOAP samples>>>
• eDocPrintPro Plugin PDFCompressor >>>

With the current version of the PDFCompressor component it is now possible to convert all 24-bit color images contained in the PDF into 8-bit grayscale images in order to generate even smaller PDF files.

This function is now also available in all applications based on our PDFCompressor components:

• PDFCompressor Component Test & Sample Application >>>
• PDFCompressor-CL Command Line Application >>>
• PDFCompressor-FM Folder Monitoring >>>
• DropCompress – Compress PDF via Drag&Drop >>>
• PDFCompressor Service CS incl. REST / SOAP Samples >>>
• eDocPrintPro Plugin PDFCompressor >>>

DropCompress makes it possible to reduce and optimize several PDF documents at once directly via drag & drop or a monitored folder. DropCompress is an executable MS-Windows application that can be started automatically and is based on our PDFCompressor – C#/.NET component.

DropCompress features:

• Executable MS-Windows application with autostart function.
• Compresses and optimizes single or multiple PDF files.
• Start processing via drag & drop by dragging the PDF onto a DropZone and/or
• Compression by monitoring a folder / folder structure.
• Compression profiles – new, copy, rename, delete, import, export – enable the settings to be changed quickly and easily.
• Profile selection before the start of processing in order to be able to select or change settings.

   

Download – DropCompress – Compress PDF via drag&drop >>>

PDFCompressor-CS-FM is a free add-on application for the PDFCompressor-CS PDF compression service to monitor one or more input folders and to optimize and compress all existing or newly added PDF files and to generate as compact PDF files as possible. These are stored in defined output folders.

The functions fully correspond to the PDFCompressor-FM application, but the processing is not “local” but “remote” via HTTPS via the SOAP web service interface.

 

Download – PDFCompressor-CS-FM – FolderMonitoring for PDFCompressor-CS >>>

The PDFCompressor Service, installed as a MS-Windows service, offers a REST / SOAP web service interface and makes it possible to compress PDF files via the server service in order to generate as compact PDF files as possible. The processing is based on our C#/ .NET PDFCompressor component.

Together with the main application, C# sample projects for SOAP and REST including source code and executable applications are installed. With the help of these examples, all PDF compression and optimization functions provided by the PDFCompressor service can be testet and quickly integrated into your own applications.

Functions PDFCompressor Service:

• MS-Windows service
• REST and SOAP – Web-Service interface, compatible with all our other web service applications such as: FileConverterPro (FCpro) or AutoOCR.
• Multithreading / parallel processing ensures high processing throughput
• Processing profiles (as XML) to manage the compression settings (New, Copy, Rename, Delete, Import, Export – Single, All)
• Compresses existing PDF files by a multiple depending on the initial situation and settings.
• Removes – unused pages, unused names, invalid bookmarks, invalid links, etc.
• ZIP compression of all PDF resources.
• Optimizing the color depth of images.
• Change Image Compression – Color, Grayscale, Black & White – LZW, RLE, JPEG, ZIP, JPEG-2000, TIFF Gr.4, JBIG-2.
• Reduce pictures – Converting of images to new target resolution is separately configurable for color, grayscale, black & white.
• Many setting options for JPEG, JPEG-2000, JBIG-2 compression
• Lossless and lossy compression on JPEG-2000 and JBIG-2 configurable

               

Download – PDFCompressor Service incl. REST / SOAP examples >>>