Reduce PDF File Size

PDF is an acronym for Portable Document Format. It is a file format that was invented in the year 1993 by Adobe Systems to facilitate exchange of documents more efficiently. This is a file format which is independent of your computer OS, hardware and software. This distinguishes it from other document formats like Microsoft Word document which needs Microsoft Office to be installed on the computer, in order to open the document. Thus PDF file format is chosen for exchange of documents over the web. But for web purposes, we need to reduce the size of the PDF file, so that it occupies lesser server space and gets downloaded quickly. If the file size is small, it can be attached to an email. The main factors affecting the size of a PDF are image resolution, image type, fonts and how they're embedded, PDF version and the level of compression.

There are both online and offline ways of reducing PDF file size. You can choose either of the methods. Choose a method based on the size of the file that is to be reduced and the number of files whose size is to be reduced. So here is how to edit PDF files to compress them for web use.

The Offline Method
The following tips will give you ways for reducing PDF file size on Windows. All you need is the Adobe reader and some logic.

• Use the 'save as' option and save the file with the same name instead of using just the 'save' option. When you use 'save as', Acrobat rewrites the entire PDF document as efficiently as possible. If you use only the 'save' option the changes you make are attached to the file, which increases the file size. Files saved in this manner can be downloaded one page at a time from a web server, reducing the time it takes to interact with them.
• There is another setting in Acrobat itself which you can use to optimize your PDF file. Choose Advanced settings then go to PDF Optimizer. Click the Audit Space Usage button. This audit space usage gives you the number of bytes used by images, forms, fonts, comments and bookmarks, as well as the total file size. Now you can eliminate the less important but more space consuming elements.
• If your PDF has a lot of images, optimizing other elements will not make much difference to the file size. You can go to the images panel and choose to 'downsample' the images. This will reduce the size of the images by deleting data that is not required. But this will also compress the resolution of the images, which in turn will lower their quality. So you cannot always use this option.
• Another good option is to ZIP the final document. This will compress the document as a whole, and will not lower the quality of the document. It just removes the replaceable parts of the file and puts them back in place when you decompress the file. You will need a small software to effect the compression. Such software are available for free download on the web.

The Online Method
With the advent of open source software and the competition amongst web application developers, many services have become free now. There are many websites where you can upload your file (one that you want to compress) and get it compressed in no time. Many of these websites don't even ask you to sign up. While some provide a small software which you can download for free and use it to compress your PDFs. Cvisiontech is one such website. There also some PDF converters that you can use.

On Mac
Actually, it is easier to compress the PDF file size on an Apple Computer. Just follow these simple steps and you will get your document compressed in no time. Get the file opened in the 'Preview' mode. Press on 'File' and choose 'Save As'. A list of options will appear. From the 'Quartz Filter options' list, choose 'Reduce File Size'. Click on 'Save'. And that's it. Your file will be as optimized as it can be. Another way would be to use some third party application software for reducing file sizes. There are some online options available too.

I hope you have found this article useful. Just remember that, if you want to edit or compress a PDF file that is confidential, avoid using the online tools.