PDF file size

[pitstax]

When printing 2019 returns to PDF the file sizes are simply huge compared to past years.  For example, taking a return for a client who has been with me for years and has a nearly identical tax return, the size of the return has grown from 3MB to over 8MB.  Nothing has changed.  This is the same for all my returns.

This impacts the backups significantly given the size of the practice.

Anyone know what is going on?  Are there any settings (like skipping a "searchable" feature or anything else) that can be set?

[itonewbie]

@IntuitAustin Hi, Austin, could you confirm why this may be the case and when/whether this would be rectified?  Thanks!

[pitstax]

Don't know who "itonewbie" or "Austin" is.  But does anyone have an answer to this?  Maybe these large PDF sizes are not an issue to most people?

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

I see that complaint in here every year about ProSeries.   

itonewbie is another user, and he tagged an Inuit Admin person (Austin) to reply to this post....this is a user to user message board, not Intuit direct support.

[itonewbie]

Lacerte runs its own scripts to create the PDF files and there is no option to adjust the parameters.  Not sure if anything in those scripts is corrupted.  Perhaps you can try to repair tool as explained in this article to see if it helps.  Hopefully, @IntuitAustin will pick this up soon enough to provide more clarity.

https://proconnect.intuit.com/community/help-articles/help/pdf-and-component-repair-tools-for-lacert...

[IntuitAustin]

Good morning! 

Checking in on this. 

[IntuitAustin]

I haven't been able to replicate the larger PDF size, It has been slightly larger, by a few kilobytes, but nothing more than that. Have you tried running PDF repair? Here's an article on that for Lacerte

https://proconnect.intuit.com/community/help-articles/help/pdf-and-component-repair-tools-for-lacert...

[damoth]

I am having the same problem with huge pdf print sizes.  The same client in 2018 had a Form 990 file size of 1.774 MB and in 2019 it print the pdf with a size of 7.046 MB.  There was no change in the client forms and associated schedules in 2019.

When I print the pdf audit space usage report the "content streams" went from 139,704 bytes in 2018 to 5,978,837 in 2019.  

Something has changed about how ProSeries generates the pdf for 2019!

[jeff3331]

My research on the Adobe side indicates that Lacerte is downloading more fonts into the PDF files, including some fonts that are not used.  some of the fonts are even in different languages and represents a standard download when the font is selected for the document.  My understanding is that Lacerte can control this and restrict the download of the fonts to only those actually used in the document.  This is a major issue as now I cannot email returns due to the large size of the files.  This is a must fix issue. 

[pitstax]

Has anyone noted a fix for this.  It makes emailing PDFs almost impossible.

[joshuabarksatlcs]

I've been using Lacerte for a while (since 1989).  Just checked the byte sizes over the years and didn't see the jump in 2019 or 2020.  The jump took place in 2015 and 2016, from around 1 MB pre-2015 to 2-3 MB.  I didn't change the form settings much over the years.

Here are forms that I DON'T print to PDF and DMS, in case these forms had a jump in bytes.

Separation sheets

Tax return folder

Invoice

estimate tax slip sheets

Next-year depreciation schedules

[joshuabarksatlcs]

I should add that there were some increases in 2019 and 2020.  I just sorted the files by size, the largest file was 1.9 MB for 211, 3.7MB for 2015 and 5.5MB for 2020.  The larger files did follow that pattern.  Nothing like jumping to 9MB. Not yet.

[DatabaseRobert]

Several years ago the LTUG (Lacerte Tax User Group) on Yahoo! had one member point out the "Debenu PDF Automation" software.  What you would do is print all of your Lacerte PDFs to <this folder over here>, then tell Debenu to "watch that folder".  With a simple little script inside of debenu--which that recommending CPA even posted--Debenu would then strip out all of the useless font information, resulting in roughly half-sized PDFs.  (We kept our "return printouts" and our "organizer PDFs" in separate locations, because we made a lot of custom changes to the Organizers.)
  Unfortunately, Debenu has since been acquired by someone (maybe FoxIt?), and they are in the process of sunsetting the Debenu software as no longer supported.

If you can still get it while their site is up, I highly recommend the Debenu software, because it works so well and automatically.  Large input files go here, output/much smaller files wind up there, and then we can just take the output files and handle them any way we choose.



Robert Kirk
LTUGtools