How to Compress a PDF, Reduce the File Size, and Make It Smaller
1. Third-Party PDF Tools
Adobe Acrobat PDF Optimizer (Cross-Platform)
If you have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, there’s a tool within the application called “PDF Optimizer”. This is one of the best and easiest ways to shrink a PDF document.
To get to this, open your PDF in Acrobat, click Tools > Optimize PDF. A toolbar with a few options will appear just above the PDF.
If you click Reduce Size, Acrobat will apply default settings to your file to attempt to reduce its size.
If you click Advanced Optimization, you’ll have more options to ensure you maintain the quality you need. To help with this, in the Advanced Optimization window, click Audit Space Usage, and you’ll be able to see how much space each kind of element is taking up within the file.
PDF Compressor (Windows)
For ease of use and the ability to bulk compress a large number of PDFs at once, PDF Compressor is a great choice that we’ve covered before. Not only can this program compress thousands of PDFs at a time, but it can also shrink encrypted and protected PDFs, too.
What’s more, this compression is lossless, meaning quality is maintained, despite the file size being smaller.
4Dots Free PDF Compress (Windows)
This freeware application enables you to compress single or multiple PDFs in one fell swoop. You’re also able to compress entire folders of PDFs with just a few clicks of the mouse, even if the PDFs are password protected.
Once you’ve selected which files you want to compress (drag and drop is supported), select the location where you want the smaller files to be saved. Hit Compress and the tool will do all the work for you.
Free PDF Compressor (Windows)
This completely free piece of software is also extremely simple to use. Select the file you want to shrink, hit Compress, then save the smaller file.
In addition, you can choose from five levels of compression, depending on how you want to use the file:
- Low resolution (72 dpi), ideal for screen-view only
- Medium resolution (150 dpi), ideal for an ebook
- High resolution (300 dpi), ideal for printing
- Prepress (300 dpi), ideal for prepress, including color preserving
- Default, ideal for a wide variety of uses
- 2. Browser PDF Tools
SmallPDF
You don’t even need an account to use SmallPDF. Simply head over to the site, add the file, and click Compress PDF. You can then either drag your PDF onto the page, locate the file on your hard drive, or import the PDF from Google Drive or Dropbox. The file will then be compressed automatically. Just click the download button to save the new file to your hard drive.
You’re able to compress two files per hour for free. If you want more, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium version.
The quality of the compressed file won’t be less than 144 dpi. This should make most PDFs small enough to upload or send via email without any problems. And if you’re worried about security, the file is deleted from SmallPDF’s servers after one hour.
NeeviaPDF
If you want more control over the quality of your compressed PDF, try DocuPub’s NeeviaPDF (for files less than 10 MB in size).
To keep things simple, you can choose one of the presets, which range from low compression (for a higher image quality) to maximum compression (for a lower image quality). You’re also given the option to discard certain elements from within your PDF. This includes things like forms, annotations, and page labels, which can unnecessarily increase the size of the file.
3. Windows PDF Tools
Windows 10 finally includes an option to print-to-PDF. However, advanced features, like tweaking the quality and size of a document, are not part of this feature. Meanwhile, many PDF printers let you choose quality and compression settings, which can greatly influence the size of your PDF files.
Note that the tools highlighted below require GhostScript to view and handle PDFs.
FreePDF
FreePDF is a classic PDF printer and we highlight it here because it allows you to create your own compression profiles. Once installed (remember that you need GhostScript), you’ll find it listed as part of your Windows printers.
To reduce the size of a PDF document with FreePDF, open it, press Ctrl + P to launch the print dialog, choose FreePDF as your printer, click OK, and wait for the FreePDF dialog to pop up. Here, you can choose from three preset PDF profiles, including eBook, High Quality, and Medium Quality.
To create a custom PDF profile, click Edit Configuration in the top right, choose Profiles, click New, and customize the options available in the Profile editor window. You can change the general quality of your PDF, adjust the default resolution for pictures inside a PDF, or add a watermark to your PDFs.
The default medium quality profile compressed a scanned PDF document of 10 MB to a 1.7 MB PDF file with an acceptable loss in quality.
