It’s probably not news to you that the pdf format is widely used in all areas of activity due to its “weight” and its image quality. Why did I focus on “weight”? Because usually this file weighs a lot due to the many colored, bulky and bright graphics and so on. Therefore, today we will look at the question: “how to reduce the size of a pdf file,” since most people have questions about this very issue. Some people even prefer using other programs because of this problem. Compression pdf files– a process that requires the use of special software. To reduce the file size, you can use the following programs: Adobe Acrobat, using standard Windows compression. Adobe Acrobat can be downloaded from the developer's website.
How to compress a pdf file?
Method using Adobe Acrobat
In order to reduce a pdf file, open Adobe Acrobat, then click on the “File” - “Open” tab in the main menu - these actions give us the opportunity to open the file required for compression. Then repeat the steps “File” – “Open” – “Save as another” – “ Reduced PDF file size" In the window that appears, select the version compatibility setting and click “OK”; in order to apply the settings to several files, click “Apply for all”, to save you need to click “Save As”.
Method for reducing file size in Adobe Acrobat using PDF optimizer
As you noticed, Adobe Acrobat makes it possible to reduce the file size in a convenient way for us. First, you need to select the documents that need to be reduced in size. To do this, we need to click on the “File” – “Open” tab in the main menu. Then we repeat the same steps, then click on “Save as another” - “ Optimized PDF file " Then you need to adjust the settings to your taste and save the file by clicking on the “Save As” button.
Method for reducing the weight of a pdf file according to OS Windows standards
In order to achieve best quality and lightest weight, OS Windows developers strongly recommend using standard file reduction before starting work on it. This can be done by pressing right click mouse on the file you created – “Properties” – “General” – “Other” – then you need to check the box “Compress...”. This procedure takes no more than one minute and is one of the most effective.
PDF files with lots of graphic elements look nice, but transmitting them over e-mail– sheer torment due to the large size of 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 you install this product, a virtual printer, 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. After visiting the website, upload the 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 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 makes no sense to compress, close the window by clicking on the “Ok” button and set required parameters compression. 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 generated by the operating room Mac system 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.
If you work with PDF files, you probably know that they can be large due to the images and graphics they contain. Fortunately, you can compress PDF files without even losing quality, thereby reducing its size. In this article, I will try to show you several ways in which you can reduce the size of your PDF file.
Method one - online converters
The easiest way to make your PDF file smaller is to use a free online tool called SmallPDF.com. The site is great (not filled with spam ads, etc.) and it does a good job of keeping the size down large files PDF. It is very convenient that you can use it anywhere and anytime operating system, and even supports new feature HTML 5 drag and drop.
Go to the website and click on Compress PDF. Then click on Drop PDF here Choose file and find the desired PDF file on your computer to compress. Afterwards, the service automatically begins its procedure.
He was able to take a 95.7 MB file from me and cut it down to 45.7 MB. This is a fantastic result, isn't it? Then click download the compressed file.
Another online tool I use to compress PDFs is Neevia Compress PDF. It has many functions: high compression/low image quality or low compression/high image quality, etc.
The second way is using a free program
PDF Compressor - free program, which you can download for Windows XP/Vista/7/8, which allows you to quickly and efficiently reduce the size of one or more PDF files. You can download it from the link http://www.pdfcompressor.org
It supports lossless compression, so you won't see any reduction in quality in your PDF. It also supports encrypted PDF documents and can handle multiple or even thousands of PDF files simultaneously.
The third method is Adobe Acrobat PDF Optimizer
Starting with version 7 of Adobe Acrobat, there is a new feature in the Advanced menu called PDF Optimizer.
Now you're taken to a screen that has a whole bunch of settings!
Click the Audit space usage button in the top right corner to get a detailed list of each component of the PDF file and how much space it uses.
As you can see, there are different things you can do to reduce the size of your PDF, including optimizing or scaling images, adjusting fonts, adjusting transparency, removing objects, and cleaning up your PDF.
In the Images section, for example, you can resize and compress images to save space. This is really useful, especially if your images have really a high resolution. If you don't need to print the PDF, you can reduce the quality and pixels per inch. You only need 72 pixels to view on screen.
Look at all the settings and change them to suit your specific PDF file.
Hopefully one of the above methods will give your PDF file a reduced size that you can attach to an email or website post. If you use another method not mentioned above to shorten PDF files, please let us know in the comments. Thank you.
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 pointing required numbers pages. 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!
After PDF creation document, it is usually very large in size; to optimize it, you need to know how to reduce the size of a PDF file.
PDF– a very popular document format among users. Universal program to view of this format on all types of OS - adobe reader.
Advantages of the format:
- The quality of file display is superior to compression types such as JPEG and GIF;
- Standardization – documents with this format can be opened on all devices, while appearance the document will not change;
- Ensuring security - when transferring PDF files online, you can always be sure that no one will gain access to edit the file. It is also difficult to embed a virus malicious script into such files;
- Support for a large number of compression algorithms;
- Automatic detection of document authenticity.
Adobe Acrobat Pro for compression. Using Standard Features
One of the most popular programs for working with files PDF format- This is Adobe Acrobat Pro. With its help, you can edit a previously created document and reduce its final size.
The application is paid, however, users can download a free one trial version for 30 days or portable version with reduced editing functionality.
The program allows you to significantly reduce the size of the final file.
Follow the instructions:
- Open your document in Adobe Acrobat;
- On the main panel, enable the File tab;
- Find and select an item "Save as another document..." and then "File with reduced size", as shown in the figure below;
- Next, a window will appear in which you will need to specify the necessary parameters and the level of protection of the document being created;
- After converting the file, click on the "Open" tab again - "Optimized file" and in the pop-up list, click on the item "Save as other...";
- Select a location on your hard drive where you want to save the document at a reduced size and click on the "OK" button. This program allows compression without loss of quality.
In Adobe Acrobat, you can not only optimize a file, but also forcefully reduce its size.
To do this, follow the instructions:
- Open the document in the program;
- Now enable the File tab on the main toolbar of the utility;
- Select an item "Save as different" and in the new list that appears, click on "Reduce size", as shown in the picture below;
This method is perfect if, after optimization, the size has not decreased to the level you need.
- In the new window, select the version of the program with which the final file will be compatible;
- Click OK to apply the options to only one file or Apply To Multiple to save settings for several PDFs at once.
You can compress a file using the built-in functions of the operating system. Windows systems. If the document does not open or takes too long to open, emergency compression is necessary.
To do this, you need to open the properties of the PDF file.
Then in general settings Find the “Others” button and in the window that opens, check the box next to the item marked in the figure below "Compress contents...".
Save your changes by clicking OK.
This compression method is the simplest, so after compressing files whose size is several GB, it may be slightly distorted general image content.
After compression, open the document in Adobe Reader to check its quality.
If it is invalid, return the original properties and optimize the file using third-party utilities.
If you only need to reduce the file size by certain time, use utilities for archiving data.
For example, or WinRAR. In the future, if necessary, you can quickly unpack the archive and get a PDF with the initial size.
Cute PDF utility
Let's take a look at the Cute PDF program. It is one of the most common applications for converting to PDF and optimizing the final documents.
The utility is free to download and offers a wide range of features.
The program creates a virtual printer on the computer, through which the user interacts with the main functions.
To reduce the size the desired file using Cute PDF follow the instructions below:
- Open the document in any reader for PDF format;
- Now click on the “Print” button;
- In the window that opens to configure print settings, indicate that the printer is named “Cute PDF”, find the “Properties” or “Properties” button and click on it. In the Windows operating system, this key is located opposite the printer name;
Note! If the name Cute PDF is not in the drop-down list of available printers, the program may have been installed incorrectly or you did not restart your computer after installation.
- In the window that appears, open the Compression tab, then select the desired quality level and degree of compression of the document. Save the settings and close the properties window;
- Now in the printer settings window for printing, press the “Print” button;
- Next, a window will appear to select where to save the document;
- Wait until saving is completed and check the size of the final file. If necessary, you can perform all of the above steps on the compressed file to further reduce its size.
Using Google Drive storage and Adobe Acrobat
You can perform compression directly through your Google drive. The computer must also have Adobe program Acrobat.
Login to your account on disk and download required file PDF.
Then you need to open the PDF in your browser.
To do this, select a document from the list of previously downloaded ones, click on it right key mouse and click on the item “Open” or “Open”.
Now you need to send the contents of the PDF tab to the print queue. To do this, open the print settings window in your browser settings.
Select Adobe PDF from the list of available devices. Next, click on the “OK” button.
Instead of the usual printing process, the process of saving the document to HDD computer.
In this case, the program will automatically optimize it, which will reduce its size.
Remember! In order for the Adobe PDF item to be available in the print list, on your personal computer Adobe Acrobat must be installed. Otherwise, saving using this method will not be possible.
Compression using MS Word
Popular word processor Word from the MS Office software package will also help you reduce the size of the final PDF. Open the file using the Adobe Acrobat utility.
Now find the saved object and right-click on it. In the pop-up list, click on the “Convert to Adobe PDF” item, as shown in the figure below.
Wait for the process to complete. As a rule, it will not take more than two minutes.
This way you can reduce the document size by approximately thirty percent without significant loss of quality.
The best online converters
Thanks to software With open source, many services have appeared on the Internet that replace some desktop programs.
To reduce the size of the document you need, you can use the following services:
- Shrink PDF. Official link to the resource. This online converter allows you to reduce the size of up to 20 documents at a time without loss of quality.
To get started, click on the “Open” button and select documents on your computer for compression. Wait for the object to be loaded onto the service.
Now the file and the status of its compression process will appear at the bottom of the page. Wait for the process to complete and download the resulting file to your device.
The figure below shows an example of using the service;
Also, using this service you can instantly compress files JPEG format and PNG. To do this, switch to the appropriate service tab.
- SmallPDF. Link to the main page of the site. With this service you can optimize popular formats, including PDF.
To get started, drag a file from your desktop onto the red area open page in the browser. You can also open the file with cloud storage from Google or Dropbox.
Wait for your document to finish loading. The compression process will then begin automatically. As a rule, the service allows you to compress a file by 5-20%.
- IlovePDF online converter. Link to the page . This online utility allows you to perform compression as quickly as possible.
The way it works is standard: drag the PDF onto a field in the browser window, then wait until compression finishes and download the file.
- Universal online PDF-docs utility. Link to site page.
To perform compression, find the small window on the right side of the page. Then upload your file and select the compression type.
Press the Forward key and wait a few minutes for the process to finish.
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