PDFs uploaded to memories do not generate thumbnail image

LegacyUser

Michael W. McCormick, AG® said: For several years I have had a problem with this.

I often have to optimize/reduce size on PDF files to get them below the 15 MB limit. Using Adobe Acrobat to do this it sometimes changes attributes of the underlying jpeg files inside the PDF in such a way that the first page of the PDF cannot be processed by FamilySearch to create the thumbnail.

If I see this happen, I can fix it by deleting the file, adding the first page back to the PDF as the un-optimized file (deleting the first page and dragging my original jpg file back into the first page position of the PDF file). Then when I upload it recognizes that first page and makes a thumbnail with it. However, this has been a problem many, many times for me. There are several files already in place that I simply do not want to delete and redo because it is a time consuming process.

Is it possible for the engineers to fix something on the back end so that the system will make thumbnails from the first pages of those files?

Example: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/a...

PDF appears fine, but there is no thumbnail.

LegacyUser

Roger C. Nilsson said: I've had to contend with this frustrating problem also and agree that it needs to be changed.

LegacyUser

gasmodels said: I recently uploaded a large PDF file that had been optimized and had a similar issue. In my case the viewing area was much wider that the first page and I thought I was not seeing anything until I centered with the horizontal slider. Eventually after a day of so the thumbnail seems correct. I guess I really don't have a complaint just happy to get the file inside the limit. I was just over the 15 mb but compression helped.

Ryan W. Noyes

I want to thank Michael McCormick for this post. It's a godsend---this method DOES work, as a workaround, for uploaded PDF documents to Memories that end up not generating a thumbnail. His guidelines, in a nutshell:

1. Realize first that your document must be below 15 MB (as of right now, anyway, Fall of 2021)
2. Compress your file using any software you wish--not just Adobe products--to get your file-size below this 15 MB requirement. When you do so, however, you will want to target a total file size in the vicinity of, say, 11 MB or less. This is because we will be adding to this file before it ultimately uploads as a "Memory" with a properly-rendered thumbnail.
3. After your file is compressed, you now need to delete the very first page of your compressed PDF
4. Create a PDF of the page-1 you just deleted in Step 3, but this one will not be compressed, like the rest of the pages in the packet
5. Merge the PDF you made for Step 4 with the PDF packet you made in Step 2 assuring this added page of course, is Page 1

You can now upload and see the thumbnail. Some final thoughts:

• If you want to OCR something, I presently see only one solution: a full repeat of your first page, along with a note in the description that your repeated page, was intentional. Set this up so that the very first page is without OCR nor compression. FamilySearch.org with therefore render this page, as a thumbnail. The second page, a repeat, can however be text-searchable. Here's a real-world example: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/134278393?cid=mem_copy
• If Michael's post solved your issue, you might consider saying as such here, because I would like to eventually direct this entire thread to the software engineers at FamilySearch, so as to encourage them to consider crafting a software solution for this problem, which as persisted for many years