Optimize PDF File Sizes - Embedded Fonts, for Example

dcamlin · July 12, 2024, 1:29pm

Does anybody know if we have any ability to impact the file size returned by running an SSRS report (PDF)?

For example, our current customized OrderAck, when returned as a PDF comes in at roughly .5MB.

Yes, we have a small company logo on there, but evaluating the returned file, most of the size is due to embedded fonts (91% !!).

Is there anything we can do, for example, in Report Builder when we design the rdl… obviously only using (1) font would help… but is there a way to prevent embedding fonts there?

We are ~~the Borg~~ cloud, so I can’t do anything on the server side.

Michael_Ramsey · July 12, 2024, 9:10pm

If you can believe everything you read on the internet, one user took a 130KB file down to 17KB just by going from Tahoma to Ariel for all fonts.

But there is also a second article on Stack Overflop that talks about a similar process working beautifully, so maybe it is true?

reporting services - Rules for Font Substitutions to / from PDF when using SSRS / ReportViewer to create PDFs? - Stack Overflow

dcamlin · July 17, 2024, 3:26pm

Thanks @Michael_Ramsey! Sorry I never got back to this. That’s what I get for asking questions on Fridays.

Interesting reading. I plan on testing this. I’ve created a new version of my OrderAck using all Arial which is utilized by Report Builder and converted to Helvetica in the PDF.

I had SOME Arial in there, but had mostly used Calibri (which gets embedded) and some Calibri-bold (which gets embedded AGAIN, separately).

I combed through my whole report and couldn’t find the Sans Serif, but its possible its hiding in a sub-report. So I guess I need to dig through those as well. Plus, I know I’ve edited some of them and may have used Calibri there, so I need to look into them regardless.

Thanks again for the articles… worth a shot!

dcamlin · July 17, 2024, 8:02pm