🚀 go-pugleaf

I produce a newsletter that is distributed as downloadable PDFs. We don't use much in the way of transparency or effects because we need to keep the file size low. So my workflow has been to print to PS and distill, which works well for our purposes.

Now we wish to incorporate hyperlinks on the pages, creating problems I have yet to resolve.

A distilled PDF loses all the hyperlinks (although, oddly, hyperlinks embedded in the text of an import Word file are retained, and I can discern no difference between these and those I create in ID).

An exported PDF retains all the hyperlink data, but the file size balloons to more than twice the equivalent distilled PDF.

Is there a way to either make an exported PDF equivalent in size to a distilled one? Or, is there a way to force the retention of hyperlinks in a distilled PDF?