PDF Conference West, Las Vegas; November 22, 2002 — Apago, Inc., a leading developer of workflow efficiency software, has released version 2.0 of its popular PDFshrink and PDFshrink Lite software tools for users of MacOS X. By operating on text and other elements as well as images, the new versions of PDFshrink can reduce most types of PDF files from 5% to 90% of their original size. "PDF files are used in many different ways, but once a PDF file is created there is no way to optimize or repurpose it without using an Acrobat plug-in such as Apago imageAlter or converting the PDF to PostScript and redistilling it with a different job options setting," explains Dwight Kelly, president, Apago, Inc. PDFshrink tools allow MacOS X users to optimize PDF file size and quality for each type of use. The software works with PDF files generated by MacOS X’s "Save as PDF" function and by popular applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator. In addition to optimizing image resolution and compression, version 2.0 of PDFshrink and PDFshrink Lite reduce the size of PDF files by removing duplicate images and other elements such as metadata, page thumbnails, and Photoshop and Illustrator edit information. The smaller-size PDF files optimized by PDFshrink tools can be stored, transmitted and downloaded more quickly, making them more efficient for use on the web, archiving, e-mail, and reading on-screen. Full-featured PDFshrink PDFshrink provides extensive control over image compression and resolution. It supports JPEG, Flate, CCITT G3 & G4 and Packbits compression methods and optimizes the resolution of each image in the PDF file. PDFshrink preserves annotations, form fields, Javascripts and digital signatures that can be lost by other repurposing techniques. An enhanced interface in version 2.0 gives users more control in setting different compression and resolution choices for color, grayscale and 1-bit images. The software ships with four common configurations and users can create unlimited custom configurations. PDFshrink takes full advantage of Mac OS X multithreading for fast batch processing. Users can automate the process with constantly monitored Hot Folders or manually load multiple files into a processing queue. Economical PDFshrink Lite PDFshrink Lite is an economical version with a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to automatically optimize PDF files for use on the web, as e-mail attachments, and for onscreen reading. Color and grayscale images are reduced to 72 dpi and compressed with JPEG. The user may select the JPEG quality. Monochrome images are reduced to 200 dpi and compressed using CCITT G4 compression. Version 2.0 of PDFshrink Lite also features an improved image scaling filter and an enhanced user interface. "Most Mac OS X users will find PDFshrink Lite perfectly acceptable for reducing the size of their PDF files," says Kelly. "The full-featured PDFshrink version is intended for PDF power users who need the flexibility of customized settings and the added workflow efficiency of hot-folder automation." Platforms, Availability and Pricing PDFshrink and PDFshrink Lite are compatible with PDF 1.4 and support PDF created by virtually any application. Fully compatible with Mac OS 10.1 and 10.2, both are multi-threaded for maximum performance on single and dual processor Apple Macintosh G3 or G4 computers with at least 128MB RAM. PDFshrink Lite is priced at $35, while the full-featured PDFshrink retails for $125. Registered users of PDFshrink tools can upgrade to version 2.0 for free. The software can be purchased from Apago's on-line store. A fully functional 10-day trial version can be downloaded from http://www.apago.com/pdfshrink