PDF documents can be quite large, especially if they are very long and full of images. Although large PDF files in most cases guarantee very high-quality documents, they can cause several headaches in case you need to send them via attachment or share them with messaging apps or other online services. In these cases, knowing the procedure that allows you to compress PDF files can be very useful.
If the PDF document you created is too large and you don’t want to delete the images or edit it in other ways, you can reduce the PDF file size in several ways. For example, on Windows, you can use third-party software dedicated to this purpose, while on macOS you can take advantage of the “Preview” app functionality.
In the next few paragraphs of this article, you will find all the information you need to compress a PDF file. So, if you are interested in the subject, I recommend that you sit back and read the next chapter of this short, but interesting guide.
Compress PDF with third-party software
The software I suggest you use to compress PDF files is Free PDF Compressor. It is a small free program, a little dated, but simple and quick to use.
- Access the Free PDF Compressor official website;
- Click on the “Download Mirror” button to download the program;
- At the end of the download, double click on the .exe file you just downloaded and run the installation;
- After completing the installation, start Free PDF Compressor;
- Using the “Browse” button, select the PDF file you want to compress;
- Click on the “Save as” button and choose the folder where to save the compressed PDF file;
- Through the “Settings” section choose the quality of the PDF file;
- Click the “Compress” button to start compression;
- At the end of the compression click on “OK” and then on “Close.”
Online services for PDF compression
If you don’t want to download and install software on your PC, you can use one of the many online services that allow PDF file compression. What I would like to suggest to you is I Love PDF. To use it:
- Access this page;
- Click on the “Select PDF file” button ;
- Select the PDF file you want to compress;
- From the menu on the left select the compression level, then click on the “Compress PDF” button, present at the bottom right;
- Once the compression process is complete, click on the “Download optimized PDF” button to save the compressed PDF file to your PC.
Compress PDF files on macOS
If you are using macOS, you can compress PDF files using the “Preview” app. Here’s how to do it:
- Open the Launchpad and click on “Preview” ;
- Click on the item “File,” present at the top left of the menu bar, click on “Open” and select the PDF file you want to compress;
- After opening the PDF file, click again on “File,” then click on the item “Export” ;
- In the window that opens, type the name to assign to the file and the location in which to save it (attention: leaving the same name and the same location the file will be overwritten);
- From the last drop-down menu, select the item “Reduce file size” ;
- Click on “Save.”
