Tips for Reducing the Size of a PDF
1. Scan documents using lower quality settings.
o Select black and white vs grayscale or color. Lower quality to 300 dpi.
2. Use Adobe to resave PDF as a ‘Reduced Size PDF’
You can sometimes reduce the file size of a PDF simply by using the Save As Other command.
Reducing the size of PDFs improves their performance without altering their appearance.
o Open the PDF you wish to resave as a smaller file >> click File >> Choose Save As Other
>>Reduced Sized PDF.
o Select the version compatibility you need and click OK to save
3. Use Adobe’s PDF Optimizer
PDF Optimizer provides many settings for reducing the size of PDF files. Control over which
elements of the document are reduced in quality. Before you optimize a file, it’s a good idea to
audit the file’s space usage. The space audit results may give you ideas about where best to reduce
file size.
o Choose File >> Save As Other >> Optimized PDF. The PDF Optimizer dialog box opens.
o
Click the Audit Space Usage button at the top of the dialog box.
4. Reduce the size as you save in Word
o In Word, to convert a document to PDF, you use the Save As option. This option generally
produces a smaller file, depending on the number of images in your document. However, if you
find that your Word-converted PDF is still too large, there is a further option in Word that will
produce a significantly smaller file.
o Open the Word document you are going to convert to PDF. Click File and then Save As. In
the Save as type menu, select PDF and enter your preferred file name. Where it says Optimize
for at the bottom of the dialog box, select Minimum size (publishing online).
5. Use a print-to-PDF tool
o Other (non-Adobe) PDF tools generally contain features that will reduce the size of your PDF.
