08-23-2017, 09:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-23-2017, 09:17 AM by rich2005.
Edit Reason: typo
)
The quality of the images in the Word PDF will depend on if the image(s) are scaled a significant amount. Exactly the same applies to Gimp but here do do have a degree of control, formatting the image before including in the montage.
Bottom line. Scale an image down, throw away pixels, lose quality. Scale an image up, guess (interpolate) pixels, lose quality.
Image Resolution of PDF
Open a PDF in Gimp and the default pixels-per-inch (ppi) is 100. Usually that is too low, set it to 300 ppi to get a better comparison. 450 ppi is a bit over-the-top. probably your images are very large and have been scaled down considerably in Word.
Quite a few operations covered by this topic so a quick video.
https://youtu.be/2tBf2TO5KeA Duration 7 mins What does it show? I use linux so it has to be LibreOffice (LO) rather than Word
Quick look at assembling in LO
Open the PDF in Gimp
Compare the Images.
Make the same montage using Gimp
Export the montage as a PDF from Gimp
Check the file size(s).
That last item because Gimp does make large PDF's. You get one large image in a PDF wrapper. Which brings up 'purpose' If this is a means of archiving your images, do not do it. Keep the images as close to original as possible. For other purposes, if you can accept the large file size and get a better quality, use Gimp.
If there is a lot of text and annotations involved, better off using Word (or a DTP application such as Scribus if the PDF is going for publication.) Generally the file size will be smaller.
Bottom line. Scale an image down, throw away pixels, lose quality. Scale an image up, guess (interpolate) pixels, lose quality.
Image Resolution of PDF
Open a PDF in Gimp and the default pixels-per-inch (ppi) is 100. Usually that is too low, set it to 300 ppi to get a better comparison. 450 ppi is a bit over-the-top. probably your images are very large and have been scaled down considerably in Word.
Quite a few operations covered by this topic so a quick video.
https://youtu.be/2tBf2TO5KeA Duration 7 mins What does it show? I use linux so it has to be LibreOffice (LO) rather than Word
Quick look at assembling in LO
Open the PDF in Gimp
Compare the Images.
Make the same montage using Gimp
Export the montage as a PDF from Gimp
Check the file size(s).
That last item because Gimp does make large PDF's. You get one large image in a PDF wrapper. Which brings up 'purpose' If this is a means of archiving your images, do not do it. Keep the images as close to original as possible. For other purposes, if you can accept the large file size and get a better quality, use Gimp.
If there is a lot of text and annotations involved, better off using Word (or a DTP application such as Scribus if the PDF is going for publication.) Generally the file size will be smaller.