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Leon
Leon
May 13, 2021

Launched: Export Compressed PDFs

  • May 13, 2021
  • 47 replies
  • 24194 views

  1. Describe the problem your experiencing and how your idea helps solve this
    When I export out PDFs and attach them to emails for review for stakeholders who either are not in Figma or just prefer to review and leave notes via PDF mockups, I always have to find a PDF compression solution that can shrink down the sizes. In addition to PDF compression, sometimes merging multiple files into a single document is something that I wish Figma gave some options for when exporting.

  2. Add as much context as possible (screenshots, Figma files, mockups, etc.)
    PDFs exported when they contain some kind of image seem to be quite large, maybe because the whole image is intact and it isn’t cropped down. Or just the quality is retained as close as possible to the Figma quality.

  3. Ask questions to bring the community into the conversation
    (e.g. Does anyone else experience this? Is anyone using a plugin or workaround to help solve this?, etc.
    I’m not aware of any community plugin that solves this. Are there any out there?

    47 replies

    Gleb
    Gleb
    Power Member
    May 14, 2021

    This is available via the TinyImage or Pitchdeck Studio plugins.

    Jaclyn_Tan
    Jaclyn_Tan
    May 20, 2021

    I would like to see a better implementation of Figma’s export to PDF feature. I know PDF is an Adobe format, but there is something about the way Figma exports pdfs that blows out file sizes excessively.

    Designers commonly mock up print files such as resumes and brand guides in Figma, but sometimes people may want to export these files out to pdf to send to people by email. If you have many assets or images, the pdf Figma exports is excessively large.

    For example, I exported a two page style guide the other day and it came out to 24MB!!! Even if I downsized the images, the images which were in a clip mask was saved out as a raster image, which is not ideal because PDF should ideally contain vectors. And even then it came out to 5mb.

    I had to redesign the entire thing in InDesign where I could then save it out as an interactive PDF. The whole thing came out to 500kb…

    PDF is an important file format (right now) and designers need it for a lot of use cases. But I do think the export to pdf feature could be drastically improved on Figma. I know it could be a monumental task given that the format is Adobe and Figma is primarily for digital design. But the PDF format is important too, and what is the point of having an export to pdf feature if the end result is completely unoptimised and unusable?

      Mark_Alford
      Mark_Alford
      June 30, 2021

      Same issue - basically produced a 50mb pdf.
      Analysing the pdf two key areas that need addressing

      • image optimisation - ideally be able to select dpi - 150/225 etc.
      • fonts - these are not embedded, all text is converted to vectors that obviously ends up being significantly larger than it should be - by a factor of at least 10x.

      If those key issues were solved believe the size of the pdfs would be very similar to pdfs produced through adobe software such as indesign etc.

        Edward_Flora
        Edward_Flora
        July 8, 2021

        This is why I use an online tool to compress the PDF file size…

        Mark_Alford
        Mark_Alford
        July 19, 2021

        @Edward_Flora Online tools only do so much, key issues with the large file size are due to

        • text converted to vectors rather than simply embedding the font - online optimisation tools or plugins such as TinyImage won’t fix this
        • Images should be optimised to a required dpi level (ie. 225, 300 etc)
          Hoby-Van-Hoose
          Hoby-Van-Hoose
          New Participant
          August 4, 2021

          TinyImage is currently commercial, starting at $15 per month and going up from there. That might not be a viable option for a lot of people now.

            Gleb
            Gleb
            Power Member
            August 4, 2021

            It always was a paid plugin.

            Jake2
            Jake2
            September 29, 2021

            Same issue. 3 page basic PDF was 72MB!!

              Seferidis
              Seferidis
              October 15, 2021

              Hello.

              We are creating lots of printable documents in Figma and when I export them as PDFs their file size is huge compared to an SVG export.

              The problem can be reproduced here:

              Figma – 15 Oct 21

              exporting this relatively simple frame weights at about 25 MBs !!!.
              In our production more detailed frames weight 95mbs.
              An SVG export on comparison weights ~2mb.

              It would be really cool if we could have some sort of PDF options to include smallest possible filesize or allow text to outlines etc.

                Rakesh_Arvapalli
                Rakesh_Arvapalli
                October 15, 2021

                I believe this is a known issue. I usually export the PDF compress it using mac’s own preview app. It worked for me in the past

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