I am working on a writing projects, for which I want to add a dozen or so photos. To keep those photos in mind (as they are a selection), I added them in a particular folder of the Scrivener project. Unfortunatly, but perhaps logically, this seem to have contributed to make the Scrivener project file very heavy, i.e. around 251 Mb.
Is there a way to drastically reduce the file size while keeping the photos in the project? Would it be possible to compress the photo to save space? In last recourse, is it possible to point to the photos in local folder on the computer, rahter than importing them in the project?
I’m not sure what format your photos are in, or whether this will help you. But I will mention that I use a free software product named ImageOptim to compress JPG and PNG files. You can adjust the settings to compress files up to 70%.
In my case, I edit photos in Affinity Publisher, then export to JPG, then compress with ImageOptim, then place the compressed image in Scrivener, then Compile. Output quality is great, and the resulting output file from Scrivener is much smaller in size. I compile mostly to ePub, but occasionally to PDF as well. IMHO the output quality is great.
You can use an image editor to make the images whatever size you want. The issue is that you’ll lose resolution, which may be a problem for your output.
See Section 15.7 in the Scrivener (3) manual for information about linking images from a file on your disk. One alternative would be to use low resolution “placeholder” images in the project itself, and link high resolution images for your finished document.
Thanks Katherin and Pomme4mois for the suggestions. I’ll look in the Manual.
Pomme4mois, I was interested by your use of Affinity Publisher, as there is currently an offer on this software and I already use Affinity Photo. Why would you use Affinity Publisher before compressing or exporting the image file ? Would Affinity Photo do the job and is not more specific to this type of job?
Hi quetzal. I own Aff Designer and Aff Publisher, and both do the job. I do not own Aff Photo but, to your point, assume it does the job too. Good clarification.
For print, photos need to be at least 300 dpi. For digital output, 72 dpi is acceptable. If you don’t have a program to reduce resolution or file size, there are web alternatives (compress-or-die.com) and others which will take on the task.
Why not keep 72 dpi photos in the Scrivener project and keep a separate file of originals (at 300 dpi or higher) in case some day you decide you need a print version of your project?