{"id":235,"date":"2016-08-05T22:48:26","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T22:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itgroove.net\/align\/?p=235"},"modified":"2023-02-23T15:44:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T23:44:12","slug":"dramatically-reduce-pdf-file-size-without-sacrificing-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regroove.ca\/karin\/dramatically-reduce-pdf-file-size-without-sacrificing-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Reduce PDF Size – How To Dramatically Shrink Your PDF File Size Without Sacrificing Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Problem: Large PDF Files<\/h1>\n

Sometimes, you have large PDF files that you have to upload or send. Whether it’s an art portfolio, an RFP, a corporate profile, or something else – you’ve gotta send it. These files can be rich with images and design, which makes them exceed the maximum recommended email attachment size of ~10MB. Everything you’ve tried has been fruitless so far, and you’re ready to give up. Learning to reduce PDF size without sacrificing quality is a tech tip everyone must know!<\/p>\n

How you shouldn’t<\/em> be doing it<\/h2>\n

Don’t<\/em> “Save As Reduced Size PDF” in Acrobat Pro. (Though this is a good feature, it doesn’t shrink the file size<\/a> by very much).<\/p>\n

Don’t<\/em> waste your precious time recreating your Illustrator file in InDesign so you can save it as a smaller file through InDesign.<\/p>\n

Don’t<\/em> save your files at a quality so low that your photos end up garbled, just so your file is small enough.<\/p>\n

The Fix: Reduce PDF Size via Adobe Acrobat Distiller<\/h1>\n

The fix I’ve found is through a great little gem called Adobe Acrobat Distiller, bundled with Acrobat Pro as its own program. It will save your files in PDF format at a fraction of the size. This makes the process to reduce PDF size simple.<\/p>\n

I was able to convert our Corporate Profile<\/a> from 70,287KB to 559KB. If you don’t believe me, try it out yourself.<\/p>\n

\"Final-Comparison\"<\/p>\n

Here’s how:<\/h2>\n

Step 1:<\/h3>\n

Save your .AI file as a .pdf. That leaves our Corporate Profile sitting at a hefty 73,085KB.<\/p>\n

\"Save-As-PDF\"<\/p>\n

\"PDF-FileSize\"<\/p>\n

Step 2:<\/h3>\n

Open your .pdf file in Acrobat Pro.<\/p>\n

\"Acrobat\"<\/p>\n

Step 3:<\/h3>\n

In Acrobat, under File > Save As<\/strong>, save your .pdf file as a PostScript (.ps) file. Now our file is 57,468KB.
\n(Note: if you choose to save as an Encapsulated Post Script file (.eps), each of your pages will be saved as individual files.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Save-As-PS\"<\/p>\n

\"PS-FileSize\"<\/p>\n

Step 4:<\/h3>\n

Now you can open your .PS file in Acrobat Distiller. Make sure your Default Settings are set to “Standard”.<\/strong> Once your file is opened, Acrobat Distiller will work its magic. The program will overwrite your original PDF (without prompting you!)  if the PostScript file has the same name, so make sure you aren’t saving over anything you need to keep.
\n(Note: remember to close your file in Acrobat before opening it in Acrobat Distiller, or it won’t be able to compress your file.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Creating\"<\/p>\n

And voila!<\/h1>\n

Our staff photos are the most graphics-intense portion of our corporate profile, so I figured I’d use a photo of my face to compare – call me Mrs. Vain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can see that there really isn’t a huge difference between the two photos – in fact, I had trouble remembering which was “before” and which was “after”. Especially given the dramatic compression of our file size, I’d say Distiller does a great job of shrinking files without sacrificing quality.<\/p>\n

\"Karin-Before\"    \"Karin-After\"<\/p>\n

I love this trick, and I hope you do too!<\/p>\n

If you want to feast your own eyes on the file I used as an example, check out our Corporate Profile here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you are looking to specifically resize a logo, we recommend using the Logo Repo<\/a>. This is a web based tool that allows you to store logos, share via a link, and download at any size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Problem: Large PDF Files Sometimes, you have large PDF files that you have to upload or send. Whether it’s an art portfolio, an RFP, a corporate profile, or something else – you’ve gotta send it. These files can be rich with images and design, which makes them exceed the maximum recommended email attachment size … <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,187,186,48,49,62,70,182,122,138,185,152],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReduce PDF Size - How To Dramatically Shrink Your PDF File Size Without Sacrificing Quality - Karin Skapski<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Have you tried everything to reduce PDF size while keeping the quality intact? 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