Differences between Save and Save As
The majority of our users probably aren’t aware there are some big differences between performing a Save and Save As in PDF editing applications such as Nitro PDF Professional and Adobe Acrobat. Over the years I’ve found myself referring to Save as being a ‘quick save’ and a Save As as a ‘full save’.
To talk about the difference between Save and Save As, we need to go into what are known as incremental updates. This is how the PDF References describes incremental updates:
The contents of a PDF file can be updated incrementally without rewriting the entire file. Changes are appended to the end of the file, leaving its original contents intact. The main advantage to updating a file in this way (as discussed in Section 2.2.7, “Incremental Update”) is that small changes to a large document can be saved quickly.Save
If you haven’t worked it out already, it’s the Save operation in Nitro Pro that performs this incremental update. This is why Save always takes less time than Save As. Go on, give it a try now. Perform identical operations on the same PDF in Nitro Pro and do a Save, then compare it to the Save As.
A common thing we hear from customers is ‘after deleting content from my PDF then saving, the file size becomes larger rather than smaller!’. The reason for this is… incremental updates! If you delete something from a PDF (e.g. a page, or some text off a page) and perform an incremental update, the object you’ve deleted remains in the file, but is marked as being not used. So when a PDF viewer opens the file it knows not to display objects marked as not being used. And, because an incremental update appends information to the end of the file about what has changed, the file size increases.
Another example is if you were using the ‘Replace Image’ feature in Nitro Pro. Say you just wanted to replace a photo of yourself with a better looking version. Both are about the same file size. After replacing the image and saving the file you notice that the file size has increased more than you were expecting (because the image is approximately the same size as the original). Whilst to the eye the old image is gone, the data is still in the PDF file, but is marked as being not used (again, so the PDF viewer doesn’t display it).
- Save = faster save time, slightly larger file sizes usually.
Save As
When a Save As operation is performed, the entire PDF file is rewritten. So if you’ve deleted an image from a page, that object will not be present in the file after the Save As has completed. So in that recent example I gave, the original image that was replaced will not be included in the PDF file when it’s rewritten by Nitro Pro.
- Save As = more compact file sizes, takes a bit longer to complete.
Conclusion
Hopefully this has provided some insight into why the results can be different when saving files in Nitro Pro. Personally, when working on a PDF file I’ll use the Save operation until it comes time to complete the job and send the file off, at which point I’ll run a Save As to rewrite the PDF and ensure the file size is as compact as possible.
Note: There are some situations where incremental saves must be used by the PDF application, but i’ll go into that in a separate blog post.
Customize Nitro Pro to the Way You Work
The Nitro PDF Professional interface is set up in a particular way by default but it’s easy to customize based on how you like to work. It’s simply a matter of familiarizing yourself with the settings and configuring Nitro Pro to your liking.
You can edit the interface preferences by heading to the Interface panel in your Preferences. Just click on the Nitro PDF button in the top left, and then click the Nitro Preferences button. The dialog below will open for you to modify.
Read on to learn about each preference.
Extended tooltips
The extended tooltips follow the same principle as the new tooltips in Microsoft Office 2007 application: explain the purpose of each tool (and if there’s room how to use it) so the user won’t need to dig through the user manual. If you’re on a very slow computer, it’s possible these may slow your performance a little, or as a power user you may find them unnecessary. Either way you can turn them off via the preferences.
Explanatory text on dialogs
Many dialogs in Nitro Pro include additional explanatory information at the top of them. Again, like the extended tooltips above, the goal is to help you understand the purpose of the dialog and how to use it, and (hopefully) reduce the need to search through the user guide to understand what’s going on. After using Nitro Pro for a while, you may find this additional information unnecessary — if so, just turn it off in the preferences.
Application color schemes
Nitro PDF Professional includes three different color schemes (a.k.a skins) to choose from. Black, blue and silver. Black is designed to fit the Microsoft Vista look and feel, blue is designed to fit Microsoft XP, and the silver is an added extra that gives you a little more of a Mac feel.
If you use Office 2007, you have similar color scheme options. I like to make the color scheme in Nitro different to Office 2007 so they’re easier to tell apart.
Information bar display
The Information bar is there to notify you of important information about the PDF files you open in Nitro Pro. This includes notifying you when PDF files have been secured, digitally signed, or contain form fields. For some users, particularly those who regularly deal with these kinds of files, receiving constant notifications can get annoying. In the Interface preferences you can turn off either or both of these kinds of notifications.
Bookmark text size
Your eyesight or monitor configuration may mean that you need to adjust the text size used in the Bookmarks pane. With the preferences you can switch between small, medium and large.
Happy Nitro Pro tweaking!
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