ProductFocus

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 20 No 06 - November/December

An affordable and easy-to-deploy (and use) tool with very obvious benefits, PDF Compressor Pro could pay for itself in next to no time.

It has long been accepted that there 'must' be a trade-off between file size and file quality: if you want a smaller version of your document, you have to accept some degradation in that document's legibility. I.R.I.S. has addressed this dilemma with its PDF Compressor utility, the Pro version of which we tested for this issue.

The premise sounds simple: if the software can determine the various components of a document (background, foreground, text, colours, lines, tables etc.) then it should be possible to intelligently apply the optimal compression to each component separately.

Those areas that require very high quality (most often text, especially if searchable documents are required) are compressed less than, say, a background colour, which need take up only a tiny space in comparison. The trick is to be able to make that distinction accurately with a variety of different document types, and it is here that I.R.I.S has applied its expertise in Intelligent Document Recognition to best effect.

What the company calls iHQC ('intelligent High-Quality Compression') is the algorithm technology that makes PDF Compressor uniquely powerful compared with pretty much any other method of creating or compressing PDF files. I.R.I.S. boasts compression ratios of up to 20 times compared with the original document size, even with fully searchable PDFs. The entry-level product, PDF Compressor Startup, is limited to approximately a 5-times reduction in file size, and for the price differential we'd recommend users go straight for the Pro version. This also gives the option of multiple language support as well as the capability to merge multiple files (up to 25) into one PDF.

Ease of use is key to a product like this to encourage people to actually use it, and I.R.I.S. have done a great job here - simply right-click on any image file (JPG, TIF, BMP, PNG) or an existing PDF, and send it to the output location. There is no need to 'launch' the PDF Compressor application or take additional steps. This intuitive approach makes it much simpler and faster to use the tool in context almost without having to think about it. The software can also be used to create compressed .XPS format files should the user organisation prefer.

The benefits of smaller PDF files are three-fold: firstly and perhaps most self-evidently, the potential for significant storage cost savings. It can be surprising how quickly networked storage can fill up with PDF files if not monitored. Secondly, where files are shared in collaborative environments, bandwidth and response times can quickly become an issue if large numbers of uncompressed PDFs are being passed back and forth across the network or intranet. Last but by no means least, a file that is 20 times smaller will open much faster on a user's screen. The customer service returns here can be quite significant in terms of time, customer satisfaction and reduced response times for enquiries and finding relevant information.

The benefits of a PDF solution that offers a 20-fold reduction in storage requirements, with no corresponding loss of quality in display or print, are clear. As I.R.I.S. say on their product packaging: "you click, it compresses". It really is that simple.

More info:www.irislink.com

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