Printing - Why are my PDF files so big?

FROM : douglas a. welton
DATE : Tue Jul 11 20:59:53 2006

Hi All,

I have a custom NSView that "displays" like a photographic contact 
sheet - it prints a collection of images in grid.  Within my view's -
drawRect: method, I use an NSImageCell to do my drawing - for each 
image, I determine where it belongs on the page, then send a -
drawWithFrame:inView: method to the NSImageCell.  I print the view by 
simply sending a -print: message.

The problem I have is related to the size of PDF file I get as a 
result of printing.  If I print a contact sheet using the 37 images 
in my test directory (which have a combined size of 6.3 Megabytes), 
then tell the standard NSPrintPanel to save the file as  a PDF, I get 
a PDF file that is over 162Mbs...

If I tell the NSPrintPanel to compress my PDF, I get a file of only 
14 Mbs.

I've looked over the Cocoa Printing documentation and a few entries 
in the archives (most notable "Ridiculously Enormous PDFs and 
Printing"), but I didn't see an obvious (to me) way of telling the 
Mac OS X print architecture to compress/optimize the size of my PDF/
printing.

Does such an option exist?  If so, would someone please send me a 
pointer to it.  If not, what other options do I have for making a 
smaller PDF file from my printing?

regards,

douglas

PS:  I can supply a code snippet if that will help...