Save, Save as and fast web view in PDF by Zaweba

Saving a file sounds like the least interesting thing an app does. In a PDF editor it's more interesting than you'd think, because there are different ways to write a PDF, and they suit different jobs. PDF by Zaweba has three: an ordinary save, Save as, and Save as for fast web view.

Ordinary saves are incremental

When you save normally, PDF by Zaweba adds only the objects that changed to the end of the file. The rest is left exactly as it was. That makes saving quick, even for very large documents, because the app isn't rewriting hundreds of pages to record one corrected word.

It also matters for signatures. A signature covers the document as it was when signed, and incremental saves leave that part untouched, so signatures stay valid when later changes are added.

The trade-off is that a file saved many times carries its history. Earlier versions stay inside, and objects no longer used can linger. File, then Earlier versions can open each of those saves in its own tab.

Save as writes a tidy file

Save as writes the document afresh. It leaves out unused objects, so leftovers from old edits don't come along. It can also pack small objects into compressed streams, which makes files smaller. That packing is a preference you can switch.

There's a further detail that shows the care taken in how files are written: saving the same document twice gives identical bytes. That sounds technical, but it's genuinely useful. If you keep documents in a backup system or version control, an unchanged document doesn't look changed just because it was saved again. And if two copies are byte for byte the same, you know for certain they are the same document.

Use Save as when a document has been through many edits and you want a clean file, or when you're producing a final version to send out.

Fast web view

Save as for fast web view writes a linearised file. A linearised PDF is arranged so that page 1 can show before the rest has downloaded. On a website, that means someone clicking a link to a long PDF sees the first page almost at once instead of waiting for the whole file.

Use it for any PDF that will live on a website: brochures, menus, manuals, reports. It makes no difference to how the document looks, only to how quickly it starts appearing when read over the internet.

Choosing which to use

Working on a document day to day, save normally. It's quick and it keeps signatures intact.

Finishing a document, especially one edited many times, use Save as for a clean copy. If the document is to be signed, do that clean-up before anyone signs, and keep signed files as they are.

Putting a document online, use Save as for fast web view.

Other tools for the same jobs

Reduce file size goes further than Save as when size is the goal, with picture settings and things to discard. Remove hidden information decides what extra content goes out with a file. And Prepare for web publishing, one of the built-in Actions, gathers the steps for web documents together.

These differences are invisible most of the time, which is how it should be. But knowing them helps you get exactly the file you need from PDF by Zaweba.