Query on the slowness of printing PDFs and their quality

[J Foster <jmf -at- PSIONWORLD -dot- NET>]

Hi folks,

 

The company I work for produces PDF files from either PageMaker 6.0 or Word 6.0. Dark ages, I know, but at least we have an up-to-date copy of Exchange (3.0).

 

Recently, I've produced a PDF from Word with the following distinguishing characteristics:

 

1. It contains screenshots. These were BMP images converted to PCX format and are black and white and not too large. I'm sort of guessing about the PCX format, perhaps there's a better one. Anyway, on screen, and printed out, they look dreadfully blurry, rather like you're looking at them underwater. This is regardless of the setting I have for 'Smooth text and monochrome images'. Does anyone know of a definitive, or at any rate 'least bad', way of putting graphics into PDFs?

 

2. When you try and print it, the file's amazingly slow. About an hour of spooling to the printer. It's only 80 pages long, and is 800K, and I don't get any trouble printing a similar size document in Word. This doesn't seem particularly affected by what DPI setting I have. The printer is a network HP LaserJet IV. Has anyone else had any troubles like this? If it's just my printer set up, I really don't mind: I can wait; if this would effect the average recipient of the document, with a desktop and his/her own printer then I'd be worried.

 

If anyone has any advice about these problems, or similar experiences, I'd be very grateful to hear them.

 

Regards,

 

John.