PDF files quickly accomplish giant proportions. Fortunately, many tools can chop an oversized PDF downward to something easier to share online. Next time y'all hit a PDF file size limit, they'll bail y'all out.

We've compiled the best tools to compress a PDF file and make information technology smaller into four general categories.

1. Adobe Acrobat Pro

Adobe Acrobat DC Optimize PDF reduce file size menu

If yous accept Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, there's a tool within the application called "PDF Optimizer". This is one of the all-time and easiest means to shrink a PDF document.

To get to this, open up your PDF in Acrobat, click Tools > Optimize PDF. A toolbar with a few options will appear just above the PDF.

If y'all click Reduce File Size, you can choose to reduce a single or multiple files. Side by side, you'll choose the file location and name. Once yous click Relieve, Acrobat volition 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 demand. To help with this, in the Advanced Optimization window, click Inspect Space Usage, and yous'll be able to see how much infinite each kind of element is taking up within the file.

Using default setting, our sample file shrunk from xi,775KB to only 212KB, making Adobe Acrobat Pro one of the virtually effective PDF compressor in this listing. Information technology's a paid tool, later on all, but in that location was 1 complimentary tool that performed ameliorate with default settings. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC will set you back $fourteen.99 per calendar month, merely you tin can get a 7-day free trial.

NeeviaPDF

DocuPub Neevia PDF settings options

If you want more control over the quality of your compressed PDF, endeavor DocuPub's NeeviaPDF (for files less than 24 MB in size).

To go on things unproblematic, you can choose ane of the presets, which range from low compression (for a higher image quality) to maximum compression (for a lower image quality). You lot're also given the selection to discard sure elements from inside your PDF. This includes things like forms, annotations, and folio labels, which tin can unnecessarily increment the size of the file.

Our sample PDF lost 98% of its size, clocking in at only 203KB, downward from eleven,775KB. This was the smallest we accomplished in our tests, and the result looked but fine. How much of the original PDF y'all want to discard depends on how much infinite you actually demand to save.

Windows x finally includes an option to impress-to-PDF. However, avant-garde features, like tweaking the quality and size of a certificate, are not role of this feature. Meanwhile, many PDF printers let you cull quality and pinch settings, which tin can profoundly influence the size of your PDF files.

Notation that the tools highlighted below crave GhostScript to view and handle PDFs.

FreePDF

FreePDF is a classic PDF printer, and we highlight it here because information technology allows y'all to create your own compression profiles. Once installed (remember that you demand GhostScript), yous'll find it listed as office 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 upwards. Hither, yous can choose from three preset PDF profiles, including eBook, High Quality, and Medium Quality.

freepdf-pdf-profiles

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. Y'all can change the general quality of your PDF, adjust the default resolution for pictures within a PDF, or add a watermark to your PDFs.

freepdf-profile-editor

The default medium quality contour compressed a scanned PDF document of ten MB to a 1.vii MB PDF file with an acceptable loss in quality.

4Dots Gratis PDF Compress

4dots Free PDF Compress main window

This freeware awarding enables you lot to shrink unmarried or multiple PDFs in one roughshod swoop. You're as well able to compress entire folders of PDFs with just a few clicks of the mouse, even if the PDFs are countersign protected.

In one case you've selected which files yous want to compress (drag and drop is supported), select the location where y'all desire the smaller files to exist saved. You can overwrite the old file or salve a copy. Hit Compress and the tool will do all the work for you. Our v sample PDFs took a few minutes to compress and came out 11.5MB or 29.5% smaller.

Complimentary PDF Compressor

Free PDF Compressor file selection screen

This completely free piece of software is likewise extremely simple to use. Select the file yous want to compress, hit Shrink, then save the smaller file.

In addition, you can choose from v levels of compression, depending on how yous want to use the file:

  • Depression resolution (72 dpi), platonic for screen-view only
  • Medium resolution (150 dpi), ideal for an ebook
  • High resolution (300 dpi), platonic for press
  • Prepress (300 dpi), ideal for prepress, including color preserving
  • Default, ideal for a wide variety of uses

Our single sample file was washed in less than a minute and, due to choosing the maximum compression level, came out at only 276KB, down from xi,775KB. The final image quality was perfectly fine.

IrfanView

IrfanView is a lightweight and feature-rich image viewer for Windows. It comes with a range of plugins that plow it into a versatile image editing tool, for case, to convert images to dissimilar file types, add watermarks to your photos, and batch process images. It also has PDF press qualities, though not in the archetype sense.

Before you can view PDF files with IrfanView, you lot need to install GhostScript. Then, when you attempt to Salvage your oversized PDF as a new and smaller PDF file, you'll come across a PDF Settings window next to your Save PDF As... dialog. Nether Full general, you might take to set the Preview of PDF during save operation to not needed, so you tin select settings immediately. So you tin suit compression settings equally seen below.

IrfanView PDF Save Options

In my test, I chose medium quality for all image types and could reduce the size of a ten MB scanned PDF document to less than ane MB. The upshot was visibly blurred, but perfectly legible.

PDF Filter

compress-pdf-mac

If yous routinely update your Mac'southward operating system, y'all should be able to shrink your PDF without installing any new apps. This is a cool feature in Bone X that many people don't know about.

First, open up your PDF in preview. Unremarkably y'all can just double-click the file, merely if yous accept a PDF reader such as Adobe Reader installed, yous'll desire to right-click > Open With > Preview). So click File >Export, and in the Quartz Filter drop-downwardly box, select Reduce File Size.

This only works with large PDF files. Try doing this with a very small PDF (less than a few MB), and these could actually increase in size.

PDF Squeezer

pdfsqueezer

Other than the unproblematic process higher up, there really isn't much selection for reputable, free PDF compression tools for Mac users. If you desire to control the output quality, etc. of your compressed PDFs, your all-time bet is to download an app such as PDF Squeezer ($5.99).

This is a relatively low-cost app that enables yous to cull from various predefined pinch settings, or to cull your own. You tin also batch process multiple files at once (including encrypted files).

How Do You Make a PDF Smaller?

This is only the commencement of what you lot tin can do with your PDFs. From reading the text inside images and scanning files for malware to converting PDFs to other formats and unlocking password-protected PDFs, you can find the perfect PDF tool to help y'all.

Whether yous're dealing with interactive PDFs or large ebooks, PDFs can cease upward being surprisingly big. Each of the tools in a higher place should aid with shrinking those files to a much more manageable size.

Demand to edit your PDFs, but don't want to install software? Try these online PDF editors and notation tools.

The 6 Best PDF Readers for Windows

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