Methods of Exporting PDF compared

From NeoWiki

Why are PDFs created by NeoOffice/J's "Export as PDF" feature lower-quality than those created by Mac OS X's "Save as PDF…" (in the Print dialog box)?

The Export As PDF toolbar button creates a PDF file using the quality and compression settings in the OpenOffice.org PDF Options dialogue. If you have not changed these settings, the default is "Screen Optimized", which uses a resolution of 72 DPI.

In comparison, the native Mac OS X PDF export (using the print dialogue) has a resolution of 300 DPI.

While the difference in file size may be trivial for many text documents, the difference is huge when there are images in the PDF file. As a result, the current behavior won't change as the Export As PDF button is designed to create low-resolution PDF files that are small enough to be mailed whereas the files created using the native print dialog are designed to print at high-quality.

If you want a higher-quality PDF that may get pretty big, use the function provided by Mac OS X's print dialog box. If you want a smaller file suitable for email, use NeoOffice/J's function.