Walt
In the same situation we moved as many customers as possible to SQL Server which does not have this constraint. SQL Server has 2K page sizes for text and image fields, this may not be great depending how big your pdfs are.
For other customers we created 500 folders and saved the pdfs to a folder by something like [h]+alltrim(str(recno()%500)) which means you'll have 400 files per folder. However, this can cause *very* significant disk fragmentation.
pdf files are already pretty efficient so I agree there is little point compressing.
You could use one of the free backend databases if customers can't afford Oracle, or the folder system above also works without paralysing your machine when you check the folder content!
Regards
JR
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
