Creating Portfolio PDFs

The below instructions are intended to assist with creating PDFs of portfolio work for uploading to the Art Department Online Application for Graduate School.

Adobe Acrobat Pro (Mac)

1. Assemble your images into a single location, ideally as JPG files.
2. Open Adobe Acrobat Pro.
3. Go to File > Combine > Merge Files into a Single PDF…
4. Click Add Files…
5. Navigate to where your images are located.
6. Select all of your images (you can click on the first image, hold shift, and click on the last image to select everything in between).
7. Click Add Files
8. You can select individual files and re-order them with the Up and Down arrows.
9. Click the smallest Page Icon next to File Size.
10. Click Combine Files
11. Acrobat will process the files briefly, then open the combined file in a new window.
12. Save the file with an appropriate name, such as jsmith_images_2011.pdf
13. Check this new file’s size by selecting it in Finder, and going to File > Get Info. The size should be below 10MB.
14. If you need to reduce the file size, follow these steps:
15. Open the new file in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
16. Go to Advanced > PDF Optimizer…
17. From Settings, choose Standard
18. Click OK and save the new PDF with an appropriate name.

Adobe Acrobat Pro (Win)

1. Assemble your images into a single location, ideally as JPG files.
2. Open Adobe Acrobat Pro.
3. Go to File > Combine > Merge Files into a Single PDF…
4. Click Add Files…
5. Navigate to where your images are located.
6. Select all of your images (you can click on the first image, hold shift, and click on the last image to select everything in between).
7. Click Add Files
8. You can select individual files and re-order them with the Up and Down arrows.
9. Click the smallest Page Icon next to File Size.
10. Click Combine Files
11. Acrobat will process the files briefly, then open the combined file in a new window.
12. Save the file with an appropriate name, such as jsmith_images_2011.pdf
13. Check this new file’s size by right-clicking on it in your file browser, and going to Properties. The size should be below 10MB.
14. If you need to reduce the file size, follow these steps:
15. Open the new file in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
16. Go to Advanced > PDF Optimizer…
17. From Settings, choose Standard
18. Click OK and save the new PDF with an appropriate name.

With Free Software (Mac)

• Download and run CombinePDFs.
• Click and drag your images into the main window of CombinePDFs.
• You can go to Quartz Filter > Reduce File Size to reduce (this may reduce quality drastically, so it may be preferable to split your images up into multiple files).
• Click Merge PDFs…
• Give your file an appropriate name and click Save.
• Check this new file’s size by selecting it in Finder, and going to File > Get Info. The size should be below 10MB.

With Free Software (Win)

1. Download and install CutePDF Writer (the free version).
2. You can uncheck the Ask Toolbar, this is not a required software.
3. When the installer finishes, it may ask you if you wish to download and install a plugin to convert PDFs. Say Yes (or OK).
4. Navigate to where your images are located.
5. Select all of your images that you wish to include in this file.
6. Right-click on the images (while they are still all selected) and choose Print
7. For Printer, choose CutePDF Writer
8. For Paper Size, choose Letter
9. For Quality, 144dpi should be acceptable.
10. Click Print
11. When it finishes processing, it will ask you where to save your file. Give it an appropriate name, such as jsmith_imags_2011.pdf.
12. Click Save
13. Check this new file’s size by right-clicking on it in your file browser, and going to Properties. The size should be below 10MB.

If your file is too large, you can try repeating these steps with a lower quality (dpi) or by splitting your images into multiple files.