Reducing PDF size. Compress and reduce PDF files

PDF files with lots of graphic elements look nice, but transmitting them over e-mail- sheer torment because of large sizes such documents. There is no need to wait long for the file to be attached to the letter, because you can reduce its size with virtually no loss of quality. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to do this - choose whichever you want.

It is worth noting, however, that half of the methods listed below are only possible using Acrobat DC from Adobe installed on your PC. This is a paid product, but the 30-day trial version is completely free. It is available on the official Adobe Systems website.

Using CutePDF or another PDF converter

You can reduce the size of a PDF file using one of the converters, for example, CutePDF. It allows you to convert files from any printable format to PDF, as well as change the document size, increasing or decreasing the quality of images and text. When installing of this product a virtual printer is created in the system, which, instead of printing documents, converts them to PDF format.

1. Download CutePDF from the official website (free) and install. Don’t forget to install the converter along with it, otherwise nothing will happen after clicking the “Print” button.

2. Open the file in a program that supports its format and has the ability to print documents. If it's a PDF file, you can open it in Adobe Reader; and if the file is in doc or docx format, it will do Microsoft Word. Click on the “File” menu item and select “Print”.

3. When the printing settings window opens, select CutePDF Writer from the list of printers.

4. Click on the “Printer Properties” button, in the window that opens, click on the “Advanced” button and select the content display quality. To compress a file to the right size, choose a quality less than the original.

5. Click the “Print” button and save the file to the desired location. Only PDF is available for saving, regardless of what format the document was originally in.

Using online tools

If you don’t want to download and install anything, then you can compress the PDF file online. Compressing and converting documents online is fast and convenient.

1. Find a suitable tool on the Internet, such as Smallpdf. Unlike other similar online tools, here the user is not limited in the size and number of documents he can upload.

2. Once you visit the site, upload it required document. This can be done by clicking on the label and selecting the file using Explorer, or by dragging the file with the left mouse button and dropping it in the desired area. You can also add a document from Dropbox or from " Google Drive A".

3. When the process is complete, click on the “You can save the file” button and select a location on your PC for it. To upload a compressed document to Google Drive or Dropbox, click the corresponding icon on the right side of the button.

In addition to Smallpdf, there are many other online compressors on the Internet: Compress PDF, Online2pdf, PDFzipper and others. Some allow you to upload files up to 50 MB in size, others - up to 100 MB, others have no restrictions at all, but they perform their work at approximately the same level.

In Adobe Acrobat

You can compress a PDF file in Adobe Acrobat DC, but not in the free Adobe Reader.

1. Having opened the document in Acrobat, click on the “File” menu item, then select “Save as another” and click on the line “Reduced PDF file”.

2. Click in the drop-down list on the version of the program with which your document should be compatible. Having chosen the most new version, you can compress the file as much as possible, but there is a risk that it will become inaccessible in previous versions"Acrobat".

3. Click on the “Ok” button, wait for the compression process to complete and save the compressed document to the desired location.

Another PDF compression method in Adobe Acrobat DC

If you have Adobe Acrobat installed and need to compress a document located on your PC, it is much more advisable to use the previous method. The same method can be used when the desired file is uploaded, say, to Google Drive, and you need to download it, simultaneously reducing its size.

1. Log into Google Drive from your account, double-click the PDF file you want to compress, and click the printer icon to open the print screen.

2. In the window that opens, click on the drop-down list and select the Adobe PDF line.

3. By clicking on the “Properties” button, you will open another window where you need to select the “Paper and Print Quality” tab, and then click on the “Advanced” button at the bottom of the window.

4. In the drop-down list (see screenshot below), select the desired document quality, at the bottom of the window click on the “Ok” button, then in the next two windows also click on “Ok”.

5. Save the reduced file on your PC.

Using Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word

The essence of this method of compressing PDF documents is that you first convert the file from one format to another, and then convert it back.

1. Open the PDF document through Adobe Acrobat, go to the "File" menu and select "Save As".

2. Click the “Select another folder” button, then select the file type “ Word Document(*.docx)" and save location. Click on "Save".

3. Having opened the document in Microsoft Word, click on the “File” item and select the “Save as Adobe PDF” sub-item.

Using PDF Optimizer

This method of reducing the size of PDF files also requires the use of software from Adobe Systems.

1. Open the document you want to reduce using Adobe Acrobat. Next, go to the “File” menu, click on the “Save as Other” line and select “Optimized PDF File” to launch the PDF document optimizer.

2. In the “PDF Optimization” window that opens, click on the “Estimate space usage” button to understand which elements take up how much space in the file (in bytes and percentage).

3. Having assessed what can be reduced and what does not make sense to compress, close the window by clicking on the “Ok” button and set the necessary compression parameters. To do this, in the left part of the window, left-click on one or another item, and in the right part, change the parameters.

4. You can delete images, change them from color to black and white, compress them, change resolution, change built-in fonts, etc. Having “played enough” with the parameters, click on the “Ok” button and save the optimized file to the desired directory.

A way to compress PDF files on Mac OS X

PDF documents created operating system Mac OS X is noticeably larger in size than files with the same content created using Adobe Acrobat. If you are a Mac OS X user and want to reduce the size of the PDF file you create, do the following:

Open the TextEdit application, then click on “File” in the program menu, and then select “Print”.
In the lower left corner of the window that opens, you will see a button called PDF. Click on it, and then on the line “Compress PDF” in the drop-down list. The result is a more compact PDF file.

Archiving a file

To ensure that the document takes up less space on your computer, you can archive it using one of the archivers, for example, 7Zip or WinRAR. Both programs are quite popular, but the first is distributed free of charge, and you will have to pay to use the second beyond the limited trial period.

To compress a document using the 7Zip archiver, right-click on the file, then with the left mouse button, first click on the 7Zip line, and then on the inscription “Add to “file_name”. Then the archive will be created automatically.

If you want to set certain parameters before archiving, select the “Add to archive” line. Then a window like the one in the screenshot below will open.

By using an archiver, you can significantly reduce the size of a document, as well as create an archive consisting of several files, compressed and combined with each other. This will make it much easier to store and transmit them via email. Just before sending an archived PDF file, make sure that the recipient also has an archiver installed, otherwise he will not be able to open the archive.

Note: Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader are not the same thing. Reader is free, but its feature set for editing PDF files is extremely limited, so you can only reduce the size of documents in Acrobat. However, Adobe Acrobat is a paid program. And if you don’t have it and don’t want to buy it, use other options for compressing PDF documents that are not associated with it.

Let's talk about how to compress a PDF file, because with all the advantages and undeniable convenience of this format, it is not easy to call it space-saving.

A little theory

The popularity of PDF files is explained by the ability to quickly create them, as well as long-term storage. Of particular relevance this format purchases if it is intended to produce printed products, as well as preserve copies of scanned documents. Most often, the question of how to compress a PDF file as much as possible arises among users when they notice that the size of a pair of identical documents is significantly different. There are several reasons for this: compression method, font and pictures. Files big size may simply not fit on a flash drive or in email. Once you figure out how to compress the size of a PDF file, you can conveniently use it, view it, send it by mail, and even free up more space on your hard drive.

Preliminary stage

PDF provides for the widespread use of color graphics, which allows you to colorfully design various documents. Even high-quality services specializing in email cannot accept such a volume. The created document should initially be saved in PDF format, this will greatly reduce its output size, while you will receive a file that will not lose the level of quality. Other formats, including JPEG, PNG and TIF, require significant amounts of space to store scanned copies of documents on your hard drive. In addition, compressed materials are transmitted to the recipient much faster, and they can be easily combined in a single package of documents. We emphasize that it is undesirable to compress encrypted information, since during its decompression, as a rule, disclosure of information occurs. This is unintentional, but quite likely.

Compression methods

The first answer to the question of how to compress a PDF file will be given to us by 7-Zip. In this case, the compression procedure occurs directly in Windows. If you right-click, the option to “Send” to a Zip folder appears. As a result, the size of the document will be significantly reduced, but the format will also become different.

Adobe Acrobat can also help us figure this out. Open the file you are interested in in the specified program. Find in it the function of saving a PDF file and reducing its size. All necessary parameters can be pre-set in the settings of this software solution. For example, in the output parameters you need to specify the name of the data and the address of the corresponding folder. However, you can also reduce the data size using the PDF optimizer available in Acrobat. In its settings, you can remove everything unnecessary from files, for example, you can exclude built-in fonts. Once the document is open, select "Save" and use the PDF file optimization feature. In this case, the settings can be saved as default or you can set your own. So we figured out how to compress a PDF file.

PDF files can be compressed for different purposes or you need to reduce the PDF size for various reasons. Let's think about the resume you submit via the Internet and mail. PDF files cannot be noticeably large when sending them by mail if you want the PDF file to reach the recipient. The mailbox is not always large and of course there is a risk that Mailbox the recipient will not accept your PDF file. Inexperienced users They don't pay attention to the file size. A PDF file of your resume can sometimes be very large if you haven't paid attention to certain points. Resumes often contain images and this is why PDF files become large; this is something that is often overlooked because the user did not pay enough attention to it when the file was created.

In case you want to take care of PDF size but have never done this before, don't worry, we have developed a small program that takes care of this task. This program is part of PDF24 Creator and is called PDF24 Compress. You can download latest version PDF24 Creator right now from this page. The program is free and used by millions of users. PDF24 Creator is a utility that solves the problems of creating PDF files.

Install PDF24 Compress

The PDF24 Compress utility is part of the PDF24 Creator. Download the free PDF24 Creator from this page, download and install the application. After downloading, simply double click on the downloaded file. The installer will launch and guide you through the installation process. Once installed, you will be able to launch the PDF24 compression program on your desktop. Click on the PDF24 icon.

Compress PDF files with PDF24 and reduce PDF file size

Launch PDF24 Compress. Open your PDF file that you need to shrink. To do this, use the corresponding icon or simply drag it to the list of files. Your PDF files will appear in this list.

This utility downloads the file and shows the current size and the size after compression. Using the basic options, you can control compression. Customize the settings according to your preferences. Information about each parameter is built into the utility. After setting the parameters, click on the “Recalculate Size” icon to calculate the new file size. If the file size is within the range you expect, you can see the result and compare the quality with the original. If the compression result and quality are satisfactory, you can save your compressed PDF file. Otherwise, you simply change the settings and then try again.

With PDF24 Compress you can reduce the file size significantly in some cases. Depending on the original file and the parameters used, a reduction of more than half the size of the original is common.

Compress PDF files online

If you don't want to install any software or need an online tool to reduce the size of PDF files, PDF24 is also suitable for this. PDF24 provides you with various free online PDF utilities that can help you solve PDF problems easily. You can also shorten PDF files with one of these utilities

The PDF file size can be large for two reasons:

high quality of documents, for example, a high resolution was selected when scanning;
a large number of pages in a document, while sometimes only one or a few pages are needed from the entire document.

How to save a single page from a multi-page PDF file

We will use the resource smallpdf.com. Upload your document to the site and select the pages that should be in the final document. The selection can be made using the mouse or simply specifying the required page numbers. Then click the “Split PDF” button and download the file with the result. This way you can remove one page and also leave one page in the document.

You can also simply print the necessary pages from the document on a virtual PDF printer; how to do this is described in detail.

How to reduce the size of a PDF file

Some people try to compress PDF files with archivers (an excellent article about that), but this does not give a serious result, since any images are almost not compressed, so you need to act differently - reduce the quality of the documents.

It is better to use the same site smallpdf.com for compression. Upload your document and click "Compress PDF". In most cases, the size of the original document will be reduced very significantly.

Sometimes the size can decrease several times, while the quality, of course, will deteriorate, but it is completely uncritical.

Read our other articles about working with PDF format and new questions, we will be happy to help you!

In this tutorial we will learn how to compress a PDF file different ways and with different quality (corresponding to different PDF file sizes)

Our task: reduce the size of an existing PDF file in order to send it by mail or if we simply need a smaller document size.

What we have in stock: the actual PDF files themselves or the file that needs to be reduced in size.

What we get at the end:

In our case, I suggest using online services for working with PDF files (i.e. all manipulations with PDF files will take place on the websites of the services we need).

From the large abundance of services and sites, I would recommend 2 of them, with the help of which we will reduce our PDF files to a minimum size with maximum compression or to “decent” compression but while maintaining the normal quality of photos in the PDF document.

So, I present 2 services for working with PDF files: and . In principle, one service would be enough (SMALLPDF.COM), but the PDF-DOCS.RU service has something that I will talk about a little later in this lesson;)

SMALLPDF.COM

Let's start with the SMALLPDF.COM service. By clicking on the link above we will see something like this:

This service has an intuitive interface, in my opinion, it won’t be difficult to figure it out, and you won’t be able to get lost in the functions. Therefore in our case it is great option solutions to our mini-problem.

Let’s say we have a “compress PDF” folder and it contains all the files or one PDF file that needs to be reduced in size (I have 1 PDF file in the folder):

In order to compress the required PDF file, click the “Select file” button:

After selecting the PDF file we need, the file selection window will close and the service will begin manipulating the PDF file. The next thing we will see is the process of preparing and compressing the PDF file:

After passing the “100% Loading” stage, the page will refresh and we will see a block with the result of compressing our PDF file “big_file.pdf”:

From this data we learn that our original file “big_file.pdf” is compressed by 71% (a good result) and that now it “weighs” 2.84 MB, and was originally 10.14 MB. Below we are offered a link to download the already modified file:

Click “Download PDF” and the download of the compressed PDF file will begin:

Finally, in our “compress PDF” folder there are 2 files - an uncompressed file “big_file.pdf” and a compressed PDF file “small_file.pdf”:

With this service for compressing PDF files “SMALLPDF.COM” the lesson is completed, let’s move on to the next service with its distinctive capabilities “PDF-DOCS.RU”.

PDF-DOCS.RU

So it goes to . At the time of writing this lesson“Compress PDF files” the main page of this service looked something like this:

Why did I choose this resource to solve our problem: in this service we can achieve higher compression ratio of PDF file compared to SMALLPDF.COM, but the quality of photos and images in the final PDF file (compressed) will be noticeably worse accordingly.

Let's start using the service. What we have at the initial stage: 1 PDF file in “raw”, uncompressed form:

First, we need to indicate to the service the PDF file that we want to compress. Click on the “Select file” button:

As a result of this, a new window will open in which we will indicate the path to the PDF file. In our case, this is the “compress PDF” folder and the file located in it “big_file.pdf”. Next, we need to set the compression level of the PDF file; for this, there is a special field in the “PDF-DOCS.RU” service:

We click on this field (I highlighted it in the figure above), we are asked to choose from three options the degree of compression of the PDF file:

In our case (for maximum PDF compression) we use the “best compression” item. Now all parameters for compression are configured, click the “Forward!” button. and the service will begin downloading our source file and compressing it:

After clicking the button, the service will begin its work and a message will appear while the work is being completed:

After some time, after the “PDF-DOCS.RU” service has completed all necessary work above the compression of the PDF file, we are informed that the compression has been successfully completed:

Based on the data presented, we see that our compressed PDF file now weighs only 1.7 MB. This, in my opinion, is a very good result in terms of the quality of the drawings in the PDF file.

Now we need to download our compressed PDF file. To do this, click on the link below in the “Download file:” field. In our case, the link to the file will be called “new-314_big_file.pdf”, click on this link to download the file:

Clicking this link will begin the process of downloading the PDF file. In some cases, depending on the browser and settings you are using, clicking on the download link may cause it to open in the browser. If the file opens in a browser, simply save it to your computer.

As a result of our manipulations to compress the PDF file, we have 2 PDF files in the “compress PDF” folder: