PDF files speedily reach giant proportions. Fortunately, many tools can chop an oversized PDF down to something easier to share online. Next time you hit a PDF file size limit, they'll bail you out.

We've compiled the best tools to shrink a PDF file and make it smaller into 4 general categories.

1. Adobe Acrobat Pro

Adobe Acrobat DC Optimize PDF reduce file size menu

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

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

If you click Reduce File Size, y'all can choose to reduce a single or multiple files. Next, you lot'll choose the file location and name. Once y'all click Relieve, Acrobat will apply default settings to your file to endeavor to reduce its size.

If you click Advanced Optimization, yous'll have more options to ensure you maintain the quality you demand. To help with this, in the Advanced Optimization window, click Inspect Infinite Usage, and you'll exist able to run across how much infinite each kind of element is taking up within the file.

Using default setting, our sample file shrunk from 11,775KB to only 212KB, making Adobe Acrobat Pro one of the most effective PDF compressor in this list. It's a paid tool, after all, but at that place was one free tool that performed better with default settings. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC will fix you lot back $14.99 per month, merely you can go a 7-day free trial.

NeeviaPDF

DocuPub Neevia PDF settings options

If you lot desire more than command over the quality of your compressed PDF, try DocuPub's NeeviaPDF (for files less than 24 MB in size).

To go along things simple, you can choose one of the presets, which range from low compression (for a higher image quality) to maximum compression (for a lower paradigm quality). You're besides given the option to discard certain elements from within your PDF. This includes things like forms, annotations, and page labels, which tin unnecessarily increase the size of the file.

Our sample PDF lost 98% of its size, clocking in at only 203KB, down from 11,775KB. This was the smallest we achieved in our tests, and the consequence looked just fine. How much of the original PDF you want to discard depends on how much space you actually need to save.

Windows 10 finally includes an choice to print-to-PDF. However, advanced features, like tweaking the quality and size of a document, are not part of this characteristic. Meanwhile, many PDF printers permit you choose quality and compression settings, which can greatly influence the size of your PDF files.

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

FreePDF

FreePDF is a classic PDF printer, and we highlight information technology hither considering it allows y'all to create your ain compression profiles. Once installed (remember that yous need GhostScript), yous'll find it listed every bit function of your Windows printers.

To reduce the size of a PDF document with FreePDF, open up it, printing Ctrl + P to launch the impress dialog, choose FreePDF equally your printer, click OK, and await for the FreePDF dialog to pop up. Here, y'all tin 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 elevation right, cull Profiles, click New, and customize the options available in the Profile editor window. You can change the full general quality of your PDF, adapt the default resolution for pictures within a PDF, or add together a watermark to your PDFs.

freepdf-profile-editor

The default medium quality profile compressed a scanned PDF document of 10 MB to a i.vii MB PDF file with an acceptable loss in quality.

4Dots Free PDF Compress

4dots Free PDF Compress main window

This freeware application enables you to compress single or multiple PDFs in one fell dive. You're also able to shrink entire folders of PDFs with just a few clicks of the mouse, even if the PDFs are password protected.

Once you've selected which files you desire to shrink (elevate and drop is supported), select the location where you desire the smaller files to be saved. You tin can overwrite the former file or save a copy. Hit Compress and the tool will do all the work for you. Our five sample PDFs took a few minutes to compress and came out eleven.5MB or 29.five% smaller.

Free PDF Compressor

Free PDF Compressor file selection screen

This completely free slice of software is also extremely simple to use. Select the file y'all want to compress, striking Compress, and so salvage the smaller file.

In addition, you can choose from 5 levels of compression, depending on how y'all want to apply the file:

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

Our single sample file was done in less than a minute and, due to choosing the maximum pinch level, came out at only 276KB, down from 11,775KB. 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 turn it into a versatile image editing tool, for example, to catechumen images to different file types, add together watermarks to your photos, and batch process images. It likewise has PDF printing qualities, though not in the classic sense.

Earlier you can view PDF files with IrfanView, y'all need to install GhostScript. Then, when you endeavour to Save your oversized PDF equally a new and smaller PDF file, you'll run across a PDF Settings window adjacent to your Save PDF As... dialog. Under General, you lot might have to set the Preview of PDF during salvage performance to not needed, so you can select settings immediately. And then y'all can adjust compression settings as seen below.

IrfanView PDF Save Options

In my test, I chose medium quality for all prototype types and could reduce the size of a x MB scanned PDF document to less than 1 MB. The result was visibly blurred, merely perfectly legible.

PDF Filter

compress-pdf-mac

If you routinely update your Mac's operating arrangement, you should be able to shrink your PDF without installing any new apps. This is a cool feature in OS X that many people don't know most.

Offset, open your PDF in preview. Commonly you tin can just double-click the file, but if you lot have a PDF reader such as Adobe Reader installed, y'all'll want to correct-click > Open up With > Preview). And so click File >Export, and in the Quartz Filter drib-down box, select Reduce File Size.

This just 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 simple process above, there really isn't much choice for reputable, costless PDF pinch tools for Mac users. If you lot desire to control the output quality, etc. of your compressed PDFs, your best bet is to download an app such as PDF Squeezer ($5.99).

This is a relatively depression-cost app that enables you to choose from diverse predefined compression settings, or to cull your ain. You lot tin too batch process multiple files at once (including encrypted files).

How Do You Make a PDF Smaller?

This is only the start of what you 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 lot can find the perfect PDF tool to help you lot.

Whether y'all're dealing with interactive PDFs or large ebooks, PDFs can end up existence surprisingly large. Each of the tools above should help with shrinking those files to a much more than manageable size.

Need to edit your PDFs, only don't want to install software? Try these online PDF editors and annotation tools.

The 6 Best PDF Readers for Windows

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