PDF Scans files using HPSmart are much bigger than scans to USB cart

[wroxdfg]

I scanned a document on my Officejet 8600Plus printer, using the scan controls on the printer touch screen.

The scan settings were 300dpi, PDFBlack. The resulting pdf file was 242kB in size.

Then I scanned the same document using HP Smart 5.7.1 running on MacOS Big Sur 11.2.3 on a MacBook Air M1.

On HP Smart the scan settings were Gray, 300dpi. When the scan completed I wrote the file as a pdf. The pdf file from HPSmart was 2.4 Megabytes. I can't see much difference in scan quality between the files.

What can account for this factor of ten difference in size?

[Betty0610]

@wroxdfg

Welcome to the HP Support Community

The majority (if not all) Mac OS X of applications support Print to PDF functionality. However, when producing PDF this way (ie by printing to Mac OS X's native PDF spooling function), there is no user control over the image compression settings in the resulting PDF file (nor over any other file-size-related features). This can lead to very big, full-resolution PDF files.

Let me know if this helps.

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[wroxdfg]

Thanks for replying Betty0610.

My question was not about printing.  It was about the scanning. A PDF file produced by the scanning function in MacOS Smart Scan is 10x larger than the PDF  file which  an OfficeJet 8600Plus writes  to a memory card when scanning the same document.

Can I tune SmartScan to be more efficient?

I use the Print To PDF function from the system print dialog all the time, and had not noticed that the size of the PDF files was excessive.

[Betty0610]

It's the same with scanning. There wouldn't be any more options for it to be more efficient.

If the information I've provided was helpful, give us some reinforcement by clicking the Accepted Solution and Kudos buttons, that'll help us and others see that we've got the answers!

Thanks!

Have a great day!