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Getting a Remote PDF (*NOT* Attached) to Display in an Email

T

turbobass

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 25, 2010
294
3
Los Angeles
So I've got some PDFs (comic books actually) that we want to send but don't really want to make people click links to YouSendIt, etc.

Problem is that the comics are between 80mb and 120mb. Adobe software is nearly useless (unless you want to create stacks of the individual pages and hand-resize using PhotoShop lol). Have tried PDFShrink, which gets pretty much unreadably fuzzy after 30% reduction or so or so.

Do any of you know a piece of software that can display an HTML or Flash that will load a PDF file into the body of an email so that it can be viewed like that?

Doesn't seem possible, I know, just my hail-mary pass to try to accomplish this.

Granted this is a headscratcher but I'm hoping one of you is strong enough with the Force to help me out :eek:
 
There is no way to view the PDF on your machine without having the PDF on your machine. Are they text, graphics, or a combination?
 
MisterMe said:
There is no way to view the PDF on your machine without having the PDF on your machine. Are they text, graphics, or a combination?
Click to expand...
It's a comic book, so really my brightline is whether you can read the text in the little boxes or not. A little bit of artifacting or whatever is OK as they're not going to print in that format, just want them to look as good as possible and be legible.

Understood that the PDFs themselves cannot be remotely viewed but is there some service which could convert them into an email-embeddable format?
 
You can only reliably embed images into an email (along with text, but we all know that). Check out MailChimp for some HTML email templates. Your best shot is to either put your comics in the email as images, or design a nice email which encourages people to click through to somewhere you've hosted your PDFs. OR you could always do a website for your comics and link to that...

/Doug
 
Your biggest problem is that you have a giant file that will be unreadable when shrunk to email friendly sizes. Getting it embedded inline is a secondary problem. Do you have illustrator? You should be able to grossly shrink the file size by converting to vector images (as long as the artwork is lines and solid colours, if there is a lot of shading, this may not work well).

Your first task if you want to attach it has to be reducing the file size to 5MB or so on your computer and still have it legible. Until you have that, an email of any sort is a non-starter.

If you stick with your remote file idea, if you convert the pdf to jpg's, you could easily code an email that loads the jpgs (but you would use a horrendous amount of bandwidth on your end as every time they open the email, they redownload the images).

I still think you need to get this file size significantly reduced for any remote or delivered content to have acceptable load times. If you can't make it smaller, having them come and download it is probably your best bet.

Good luck.
 
citizenzen said:
Nonsense.

The software is quite capable of doing what you need it to do.

Stop blaming the software and start learning how to use it.
Click to expand...
Calm down. I was referring to the PDF size reduction feature, which is quite limited and weak. If you have any bright ideas on greater functionality in Adobe's software to do this, why don't you share it instead of trolling?
 
whooleytoo said:
You could try Print2Flash to convert the PDF to Flash, and then embed that Flash in a html email? No idea how well that would work..
Click to expand...
I'm thinking something like that (converting) may be necessary, but am a loss as to what the best way to go about it is.
 
jampat said:
If you stick with your remote file idea, if you convert the pdf to jpg's, you could easily code an email that loads the jpgs (but you would use a horrendous amount of bandwidth on your end as every time they open the email, they redownload the images).
Click to expand...
Hear you on the attaching -- I realize that it's a very specific application, we're trying to get the size down so A. no clicking on a link is required and B. so that it displays in the email.
jampat said:
I still think you need to get this file size significantly reduced for any remote or delivered content to have acceptable load times. If you can't make it smaller, having them come and download it is probably your best bet.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

I also hear you on the bandwidth issue. That's definitely a concern, but not my primary focus at the moment :)

Am going to talk to my CompSci type friends and see if there isn't an elegant way to do this.

Thank you all (or almost all :p) for your help!!
 
A couple of articles to read on flash in emails:

Using Flash in Email - an oldie, but still relevant!

Sending HTML Email with Flash

Who are you intending to send the email too by the way? If you know your audience and know what email client they are going to be using, you are in with a slight chance...

Adobe's PDF optimisation is actually quite good. It is their technology after-all. You just need to select the right settings and accept that some things can't be reduced well to small file sizes.

Can you give us any more info on the comics you're trying to deliver? Are they complex images, vector, what have you produced them in etc etc... Maybe show us?

Anyways, good luck with it!

/Doug
 
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