How To Make Your PDF Files Smaller

macmost.com/e-... Sometimes you need to create PDF documents that are small enough to upload or submit with a size restriction. You can use Preview to compress the images in a PDF file, but you get better results with more control if you work with the images in the original document.
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[@resolutegopher]

Finally, a mac tutorial that makes sense and actually works! Thank you MacMost. Subscribed!

[@pauldelcour]

The clarity of your explaining is just great, already picked up a lot of handy tools I didn't know my Mac had. Huge compliment!

[@RMJTOOLS]

He’s awesome. What a lot of folks don’t know that there is an incredible amount of built in stuff in the Mac and you don’t have to buy additional programs.

[@jimmytrentham3094]

Excellent as always Gary. Five stars. I have watched your tutorials for a long time and there has never, I repeat, never been a bad one. Five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@l.kurdistani]

This video is really useful as well as informative. Thanks Gary.

[@rsgardiner]

Great video, Thanks! I am new to Macs & Pages and I am catching up on many of your older videos. I was able to reduce my pdf file from 27MB down to 300KB by shrinking a few photos in the document. Much needed for volunteers using less powerful laptops from home.

[@carolinebarlow4795]

Thanks, Gary, for yet another excellent and informative tutorial!

[@amorylazlo9579]

Great information Gary. Journalling is a popular hobby, an episode with tips for journallers moving from paper to mac would be helpful

[@mariaangeliearca8038]

THANK YOU GARY!

[@444wolfie]

You are incredibly helpful! LOVE your videos! THANK YOU!!!!

[@estherkwok6492]

Always can find the best solution from your channel , Great Thanks, indeed !!!!

[@bluejay5531]

thank you so much!! I was stuck with an important thing to send and this saved the day really fast, subscribed and will be checking how to get more use out of my mac

[@pomme4moi]

Great video. I never would have thought that “quartz filter” = smaller. Thanks Gary.

[@Curlew-Corner]

Excellent info thanks, Gary. I use MS Word to produce a weekly newsletter and use File/Reduce File Size to make the document smaller before creating the pdf file for distribution. File/Reduce File Size provides a number of reduction options and I choose one which provides the best balance between picture quality and document size. I take the view that if readers send me pictures for inclusion, I should use the option which best does justice to their pictures in the distributed pdf. As such, I'm happy with a pdf of 1mb or less.

[@johnphillips519]

Have wondered about this for so long its not funny, Have tried all sorts of solutions, None better than what you have just shown, You are a bloody legend👍👏

[@barbarasmith7116]

Thank you so much!

[@loisskiathitis8926]

A very useful and informative video tutorial today! Thank you, Gary! Sorry I’m late today internet woes. 👏🏻❤️

[@stevethewindsurfer8911]

That's quite some work. Tools like PDF Squeezer make it much easier and quicker. :)

[@benja_tuyishime]

Much THANKS for saving my *** this makes me like My mac so much!!

[@richierich9322]

Thank you for these videos. You got me out of another jam. 🙏🏼

[@floblanblan4446]

Thank you 👍🏻

[@UnionMac]

Excellent, Gary. Thank you.

[@denni515]

This was sooooooo helpful! THANK YOU!!!!

Great Gary, as always... Thanks for sharing it.

[@diamondbreak]

You are the G.O.A.T, Gary.

[@riqfez5468]

thank you Gary you are absolutely wonderful. I need this video to send documents.

[@russellball4053]

Thanks Gary for your great channel

[@benjaminkessler3337]

Great tutorial! Thanks 😄

[@peterthomson5155]

Excellent learnings thank you

[@gfgxxxQoQ]

I didn’t know this! Thank you!! I looked for the way to shrink pdf files some time ago but gave up. I remember I could do this when OCR was a big deal and readable PDF was a discover tho :D

[@inghilt]

Súper great tip as always! Thank’s 💛

[@ej063]

No quartz filter available when i click export 🤷🏻

[@dr.limouni]

Thanks 👍 This was really useful

[@miguelduarte309]

Excellent video. . . Regarding the first part of the video, the situation of compressing the PDF's is very useful. Can I do this on my iPhone? Decrease the size of the pdf. . . Or is it only possible on the Mac? Thank you

[@macmost]

This method only works for Mac. There may be some apps in the App Store that do some things, but otherwise it will be difficult.

[@bobvogel9916]

Thanks, I make reports with many pictures taken of work needed on hiking trails. I 'knew' what the problem was...(too many hi res pictures) but this shows how to solve it. (Which is what I need! 🙂

[@paulvanobberghen]

I’m not sure, but I believe you are actually applying a JPEG compression twice: once when resizing and then choosing a jpeg compression. That is because Preview is saving all the modifications you make to the picture, and as it is JPEG, when you resize, it will save internally AND apply a JPEG compression, though I don’t know by what amount.

[@desertpatient]

Thanks bunches

[@remi.bolduc]

Thank you for your videos !! I am trying to reduce the size of a PDF with multiple pages, 48 pages. The original PDF I have, I guess it's photos of a document, has 400 MB. Using your method with ColorSync utility, making it at a smaller setting, I was able to bring that document to 116 MB. Can I reduce it more? I know that if I export every single page in JPEG, I can reduce each page to 693 KB. But this is long, if I do it with 48 pages. This way, each page, once reopened in preview and exported as PDF, goes down to 230 KB. Which would bring the document to a much smaller size and the quality is still decent. What's the best way to do this without having to do all those actions? Thank you again.

[@TheKgns]

I'm confused. I followed the instruction to reduce the PDF file size to a couple of PDF drawings and in all cases the file size increased from a couple of k's to double the mb's. Am I missing something???

[@macmost]

Which technique? If the file didn't get smaller, it probably means the images were already well-compressed to begin with.

[@TheKgns]

@@macmost I receive a lot of PDF plans for electrical services (probably a conversion from AutoCad to PDF) via a tendering service. Some of these are over 12MB which is hard to email to suppliers. I just tried to reduce a 1.8MB file via the export method and ended up with a file at 2.3MB, I also printed ti ODF and it ends up at 2.7MB, looks like I will just have to live with it. Thanks for the reply. I appreciate all the videos you upload, always learning something new.

[@macmost]

@@TheKgns Ah, so these are PDFs you "receive" and not ones you "create." Sounds like the images in them are already well-compressed so just exporting them from Preview won't help. The only alternative would be if you could get the original documents (what is used to make the PDF) and edit them and export a new PDF like I show in the video.

[@MannyDer]

I just back up ten feet, they get tiny!

[@cookie_monster3200]

Thanks Gary, really helpful! But this compression was a little bit too much. I really hate looking at documents with bad image quality, I hope that people don‘t try to reduce the file size like maniacs now haha. 2-5 MB is still decent enough if you have photos in it. No need for 100kb. Best is to address the recipient. You make one PDF for you? Go with 100kb. Send it around for other people to look at it? Take a better quality if no one said that they don‘t want larger file sizes

[@akcreation7024]

Sir how to fix wifi:no hardware installed problem. Inside the Wifi icon shown x symbol. I did try restart method, cmd +control+p+r. But no use. Sir How to fix it?

[@macmost]

Call Apple Support.

[@marcusholtzmann8387]

Anyway to make a pdf smaller on a iPhone? 26 pages all texts, 4.5mb Max is 4mb

[@macmost]

What are you using to build the PDF?

[@serenadenphoto]

Well explained. Couldn't that process be handled by a shortcut?

[@macmost]

Not really. I'm showing a whole variety of techniques here.

[@OntargetsolutionsBiz2015]

Can you make a video to address using an OCR reader to convert a text document into pages for editing?

[@macmost]

What do you want to know?

[@OntargetsolutionsBiz2015]

@@macmost I have searched for an OCR to use with PAGES to convert scanned documents to edit them into pages. The apps I have found did not work to do this conversion. What do you suggest for editing scanned files?

[@macmost]

@@OntargetsolutionsBiz2015 I don't think any OCR app will work specifically with Pages. OCR will convert to text, and then you can take the text and use it in Pages, Word, TextEdit, etc.

[@OntargetsolutionsBiz2015]

@@macmost Thanks for the follow-up.

[@McCloudChris]

How do you reduce 50MG link to 20GMG PDF that someone sent you.

[@macmost]

I show techniques to use in this video. Very likely that you need to go back to the source file (Pages, Word, etc) and change the images in the document to use smaller (dimensions) photos and higher compression on them. There is only so much you can do if all you have is their finished PDF.

[@johnsteed9083]

Does this work with vectors Gary? Sometimes my pdf's are huge because of complicated vectors out of Illustrator.

[@macmost]

No, it won't know how to change your vectors to make them smaller. To do that, work inside of Illustrator with functions there, or save as a jpg image instead (maybe?).

[@87svenster]

Can you do this on an ipad?

[@macmost]

Which technique? You can certainly pick smaller, better-compressed images in your Pages documents.

[@tatvam9350]

PAGES DOES NOT SUPPORT PDF FILE HOW CAN I IMPORT

[@macmost]

A PDF is the exported "finished" document. You should go back to the original document (Pages, Word, InDesign, etc) to edit it and export another PDF. Like paper, but digital. If you just want to "mark up" a PDF, or fill out a form PDF, then use Preview, not Pages.

[@welling1]

Using this technique for pdfs generated from Figma results in much larger file sizes.

[@macmost]

Probably because the images in the PDFs are already very well-compressed.

[@thesunshinehealthspace]

its making my file bigger for some reason

[@macmost]

Which technique? Are you working with the images like I show in the video?

[@thesunshinehealthspace]

@@macmost the preview method of exporting and selecting reduce file size

[@macmost]

@@thesunshinehealthspace Right. So that means that the PDF can't be compressed any more. It is already as compressed as it will allow. You need to use the other techniques.

[@ramandeepgill2659]

too complicated

[@ZAR-2225]

Who uses Apple mac anyway.