Program to compress pdf file online. How to Compress a PDF File: Tips and Tricks

Often there is a need reduce the size of a PDF document, which has already been created. For these purposes, the easiest way is to use Adobe Acrobat (Standard or Professional versions). For example, Adobe Acrobat 7.0 is now available for free download from the Adobe website (registration may be required). I draw your attention to the fact that for these purposes a regular PDF viewer (ie Acrobar Reader) is not suitable! You need a PDF editor.

For information. A PDF file cannot be reduced if it is made from vector objects, i.e. for example, from Microsoft Office text applications (Word, Excel) or AutoCAD - because vector graphics always take up a minimum of space, unlike raster graphics. Therefore, this solution will help you a lot, most likely only when compressing SCAN documents to PDF, i.e. created from bitmaps.

So, open the PDF file that you want to compress, Go to the menu "File" - "Save as different" and choose the item "Reduced PDF File":

Next, you need to select the version with which the resulting compressed reduced PDF file will be compatible. The newer the version selected, the smaller the file size will be. But keep in mind that if you select "Acrobat 10.0 and above" for example, the file may not open in version 7, 8, or 9, ie. previous ones. But now most users use Acrobat Reader version 10 and above, so there shouldn't be any problems. And if not, then a newer version of the PDF viewer can be freely downloaded and installed.

By the way, this opportunity can be used if necessary. reduce PDF size of multiple files at once! It is very convenient when there are a lot of them, so as not to open each one separately:

After pressing the "OK" button - select a location to save the finished reduced PDF file, and give it a name. Due to some loss in quality, the document will take up less space than usual.

The article presents 6 services that perform PDF compression online, with which you can reduce the size of a PDF file online. Why is it necessary to reduce the size of a PDF?

The popular PDF format often saves various documents, instructions, e-books, etc. This format has its advantages: on any computer, in any operating system, the file looks the same. Everything is fine, but there is one problem: the files saved in PDF format are quite large.

Sometimes, due to the file size, the following problems occur:

• files take up a lot of space on a disk, portable device (flash drive), mobile device
• it happens that large files take a long time to open in applications for viewing files of this format
• often there are restrictions on sending large files by e-mail

The solution to this problem is quite simple: you need to reduce the size of the PDF online, or with the help of an appropriate program. In this article, we will look at how you can compress PDF online using specialized Internet services.

There are quite a few services on the web for working with PDF files, which, among other things, can compress PDF online.

Even if such a function is not in demand often, the user should bookmark services that will help reduce PDF online if necessary. For example, a colleague recently approached me for help. She needed to send a scanned PDF document to a government agency, but they wouldn't accept incoming attachments larger than 2MB. Thanks to specialized services, we were able to easily reduce the PDF file online.

Try compression on different services in order to choose the best balance between file quality and compression ratio that suits you for a particular document.

How to compress PDF file online on iLovePDF

The online service, among other things, reduces the size of a PDF file. This service has 3 types: unregistered (free), registered (free) and premium.

Without registration, compression of one PDF file up to 160 MB is available, and for a registered user - up to 200 MB.

Click on the "Select PDF file" button, or drag and drop a file from your computer to the area below the button.

Please note that there are special buttons nearby for downloading a PDF file from Google Drive and Dropbox cloud storages. In this case, the PDF file will be uploaded to the service from the "cloud", reduced in size, and then, if necessary, returned back to the cloud storage.

Through the rendering process, the uploaded file will be displayed in the service window.

• extreme compression (high compression ratio, worst quality)
• recommended compression (good compression ratio, good quality)
• low compression (low compression, high quality)

Choose the most appropriate option to reduce the weight of the PDF. The Recommended Compression option is selected by default.

After processing is completed, the service page will display information about the degree of compression of this PDF file.

Click on the "Download Compressed PDF" button to download the file to your computer, or click on the corresponding button to send the compressed file to the cloud storage. Here you can get a link to send a file to another user.

How to Reduce PDF Online with Smallpdf

Service for working with files in PDF format. The service can be used free of charge up to two times (performing any operation) in one hour.

There are no compression settings on this service, the settings are optimized to get a high quality compressed file. Drag a file from your computer to the designated area, or select a file to upload from your computer or cloud storage (Dropbox and Google Drive are supported).

After the size of the PDF file is reduced, the page will display information about the PDF compression ratio. Then you can download the file to your computer, save it to cloud storage, convert the compressed PDF file to JPG format, or sign the file in eSign.

How to reduce PDF online with PDF Compressor

The website of the PDF Compressor service claims that when a PDF file is compressed, the density of the document (DPI) is not reduced, clarity and scaling are preserved.

The service allows batch processing of files. Upload up to 20 files (there are file size limits), wait for the file compression process to finish.

After that, the page will display the file compression size. The compressed PDF file is saved on the PC in a ZIP archive.

How to Reduce PDF Size Online at Jinapdf.com

Another service for working with PDF files is . Here they promise fast compression without loss of quality. This service is completely free.

Click on the "Select PDF file" button, and then wait for the PDF file compression process to complete.

Download the compressed file to your computer.

Compress PDF file on PDF2Go

Free online service works with files of this format. To transfer a PDF file from a PC to the service, click on the "Upload local files" button, or select a file to upload from the cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive), or specify a link (URL) to the file.

After downloading, you need to select the quality settings for the PDF file. The following quality options are available:

• Screen (high quality, 72 dpi) - default setting
• Minimum quality (40 dpi)
• E-book (high image quality, 150 dpi)
• Printer (high quality, 300 dpi)
• Preparing to Print (High Quality, Color Preservation, 300dpi)

If necessary, you can select the setting "Additional compression: all pages in grayscale".

Select the desired quality, and then click on the "Compress PDF" button.

How to Reduce PDF Size on Pdfio

Go to pdfio.co, select one or more PDF files. Upload files from a computer, from cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive), via a link from a website, or drag and drop files onto a page.

After uploading the file to the service, select one of the compression options:

• Low compression, high image quality
• Medium compression, medium image quality
• High compression, low image quality

Then download the compressed PDF file to your computer.

Article Conclusions

The user can compress a PDF file on one of 6 specialized online services: iLovePDF, Smallpdf, PDF Compressor, Jinapdf, PDF2Go, Pdfio. The compressed file will be smaller.

The question of reducing the size of a pdf file is often raised by an active computer user. Due to the large weight of the scanned images. Because of this, the document takes up hundreds of megabytes of disk space. Let's consider the problem in more detail.

Using Adobe Reader

You can reduce the size of a document using the free version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. The compression feature is only available with a paid subscription. The utility is installed without problems, so let's get to work right away.

From the start menu, go to the “File” tab. Click on the “Open” item and select the document. In this example, we will use a 69.9 MB textbook. It consists entirely of scanned pages of the printed edition. You can also open a document by clicking on it in the file manager. Go to the menu shown in the screenshot.

We leave the default values ​​in the called window. Choose a location to save the compressed pdf. The example file now weighs 33.3 MB. Compression was performed for about two minutes. The image quality has deteriorated. On a website or computer, this may not be noticeable. However, after printing, the illustrations will be fuzzy or completely blurry. The disadvantage of this method is that there is no flexible setting for an advanced user.

If you need to set additional parameters, then the optimizer will help. We open the document we need. Click on the button shown in the illustration below.

There are few settings, but they look difficult to master. Let's define the main ones. They are located in the left menu "Images". Downsampling determines the resolution of images. To the right of the parameter, you can set ppi (number of pixels per inch). Highly recommended for printing. It is advised when placing illustrations on the site. Below you can set the type of compression. ZIP is used for simple images dominated by one color. JPEG - for any images. Its improved version is JPEG2000.

After setting, choose a location to save the file. Let's compare the quality of the optimized document and the original. Left - original file, right - compressed.

Changes in quality are imperceptible even when the picture is enlarged three times.

Using third party software

PDF Compressor is suitable for the role of a free analogue.

An intuitive interface and a small weight of the program will appeal to any user. In the upper left part of the window, you must click the “Add Files” button to open the document. You can also drag the file directly into the program's workspace.

To optimize, click “Start Compression”. The button is at the top center. First you need to set the compression settings by clicking the “Compression Settings” button.

After opening the settings menu, you will be notified to purchase a license. It is needed to fine-tune the compression. Click “Continue”, check the boxes in the “Compression” and “Optimization” tabs. Close the window and click “Start Compression”.

During the compression process, the weight of the textbook from the example decreased from 69.9 MB to 56.9 MB. Compare quality. On the left - the document before optimization, on the right - after.

The result is worse than Adobe Acrobat Reader. Now the compressed file is distorted. The advantage of the program is that you can compress the file absolutely free. As a result - the worst quality and larger size. The utility logo is also added to the first page.

With WinRAR

WinRAR is a free program with the option to purchase a license. Designed to place files in an archive and then compress them. The quality does not change. You can extract the original from the archive at any time.

The workspace of the utility shows the file system of your computer. Select a folder to create the archive. Click on "Add". The button is in the upper left corner. Before us is the archive settings menu.

We are interested in the drop-down list “Compression method” in the “General” tab.

Their names speak for themselves. High-speed less time-consuming, also having a low compression ratio. The maximum has the opposite characteristics.

Documents are added from the Files tab.

The compression of the file from the example took several seconds. The file weight has changed from 69.9 MB to 68.3 MB. Conclusion: WinRAR does not work well with pdf files. Plus program - the original is preserved unchanged.

Using the online service ILovePdf

A convenient solution is web services for working with pdf-files. ILovePdf can not only edit the contents of a file, but also reduce its size.

We start by pressing the big red button “Select PDF files”. An explorer will open where we will indicate the path to the pdf document.

After selecting, the compression settings will appear below. They don't need comments. Leave the recommended settings. At the very bottom is the "Compress PDF" button. Let's click on it.

After the compression process, we get to a new page and again click on the big red button.

In the screenshot above, we were also informed about changes in the weight of the document. Instead of 69.9 MB, the textbook now weighs 55.9 MB. The result is similar to that of the PDF Compressor application. The difference is that you do not need to download or install anything. Compare quality. On the left is the optimized document, on the right is the original.

A slight loss of quality is noticeable, the perception of information is not affected.

Using the SmallPdf online service

This service allows you to upload files from Google Drive or DropBox. Documents are sent from a computer through Explorer or by dragging a file into a browser window.

Click on the big red button. You don't need to click anything to reduce the size of a pdf file. It happens right after loading. Then download the document by clicking on the “Download file” button.

From the service, the document can be sent to Google Drive or DropBox (neighboring buttons). The illustration shows the volume of the compressed document. The file size has changed from 69.9 MB to 59.2 MB. A little more than the previous service. Let's check the quality. Left - compressed pdf, right - original.

SmallPdf was able to compress the file with almost no quality loss. The downside of the service is the lack of compression settings.

In conclusion, archivers do not work well with PDF documents, and the best compression method is online services and the standard Adobe tool.

PDF files with lots of graphic elements look nice, but sending them by e-mail is a pain in the ass because of the large size of such documents. You don't have to wait long for the file to be attached to the email, because you can reduce its size with almost no loss of quality. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to do this - choose whichever you want.

It is worth noting, however, that half of the methods listed below are feasible only with Adobe's Acrobat DC installed on your PC. This is a paid product, but the 30-day trial version is absolutely free. It is available on the official website of Adobe Systems.

With CutePDF or another PDF converter

You can reduce the size of a PDF file using one of the converters, such as CutePDF. It allows you to convert files from any printable format to PDF, as well as change the size of the document, increasing or decreasing the quality of images and text. When this product is installed, a virtual printer is created in the system, which converts documents to PDF format instead of printing documents.

1. Download CutePDF from the official website (free) and install. Do not forget to install the converter along with it, otherwise nothing will happen after clicking the "Print" button.

2. Open the file in a program that supports its format and has the ability to print documents. If it's a PDF file, it can be opened in Adobe Reader; and if the file is in doc or docx format, Microsoft Word will do. Click on the "File" menu item and select "Print".

3. When the print settings window opens, select CutePDF Writer from the list of printers.

4. Click on the "Printer Properties" button, in the window that opens, click on the "Advanced" button and select the content display quality. To compress the file to the desired size, choose a quality lower than the original.

5. Click on the "Print" button and save the file to the desired location. Only PDF is available for saving, regardless of what format the document originally had.

Using online tools

If you do not want to download and install anything, then you can compress the PDF file online. Compressing and converting documents online is fast and convenient.

1. Find a suitable tool on the Internet, such as Smallpdf. Unlike other similar online tools, here the user is not limited by the size and number of uploaded documents.

2. Having entered the site, upload the necessary document to it. This can be done by clicking on the inscription and selecting the file using the explorer, or by dragging the file with the left mouse button and dropping it in the desired area. You can also add a document from Dropbox or Google Drive.

3. At the end of the process, click on the "You can save the file" button and select a location for it on your PC. To upload a compressed document to Google Drive or Dropbox, click the corresponding icon on the right side of the button.

In addition to Smallpdf, there are many other online compressors on the Internet: Compress PDF, Online2pdf, PDFzipper and others. Some allow you to upload files up to 50 MB in size, the second - up to 100 MB, others do not have any restrictions at all, but they perform their work at approximately the same level.

In Adobe Acrobat

You can also compress a PDF file in Adobe Acrobat DC, but not in the free Adobe Reader.

1. With a document open in Acrobat, click on the File menu item, then select Save As Other and click on Reduced Size PDF File.

2. Click in the drop-down list on the version of the program with which your document should be compatible. By choosing the newest version, you can compress the file as much as possible, but there is a risk that it will become unavailable in previous versions of Acrobat.

3. Click on the "OK" button, wait for the compression process to finish and save the compressed document to the desired location.

Another PDF compression method in Adobe Acrobat DC

If you have Adobe Acrobat installed and need to compress a document located on your PC, it is much more appropriate to use the previous method. The same method can be used when the desired file is uploaded, say, to Google Drive, and you need to download it, reducing the size along the way.

1. Log into Google Drive with your account, double click the PDF file you want to compress, and click the printer icon to open the print screen.

2. In the window that opens, click on the drop-down list and select the line Adobe PDF.

3. By clicking on the "Properties" button, you will open another window where you need to select the "Paper and print quality" tab, and then click on the "Advanced" button at the bottom of the window.

4. In the drop-down list (see screenshot below), select the desired document quality, click on the “OK” button at the bottom of the window, then in the next two windows, also click on “OK”.

5. Save the reduced file to your PC.

Using Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word

The essence of this method of compressing PDF documents is that you first convert the file from one format to another, and then do the reverse conversion.

1. Open a PDF document through Adobe Acrobat, go to the "File" menu and select "Save As".

2. Click the "Choose a different folder" button, then select the file type "Word Document (*.docx)" and the save location. Click on Save.

3. With the document open in Microsoft Word, click on the "File" item and select the "Save as Adobe PDF" sub-item.

Using the PDF Optimizer

This method of reducing the size of PDF files is also not complete without the use of software from Adobe Systems.

1. Open the document you want to reduce using Adobe Acrobat. Next, go to the "File" menu, click on the line "Save as Other" and select "Optimized PDF File" to launch the PDF document optimizer.

2. In the “PDF Optimization” window that opens, click on the “Estimate space usage” button to understand which elements take up how much space in the file (in bytes and percentages).

3. After evaluating what can be reduced and what does not make sense to compress, close the window by clicking on the “OK” button and set the necessary compression parameters. To do this, in the left part of the window, left-click on one or another item, and in the right part, change the parameters.

4. You can delete images, convert them from color to black and white, compress them, change resolution, change built-in fonts, etc. "Playing enough" with the parameters, click on the "OK" button and save the optimized file to the desired directory.

Way to Compress PDF Files on Mac OS X

PDF documents created by Mac OS X are noticeably larger than files with the same content created using Adobe Acrobat. If you are a Mac OS X user and would like to reduce the size of the PDF you have created, do the following:

1. Open the TextEdit application, then in the program menu, click on the "File" item, and then select "Print".
2. In the lower left corner of the window that opens, you will see a button with the name PDF. Click on it, and then on the line "Compress PDF" in the drop-down list. As a result, you will get a more compact PDF file.

File archiving

To make the document take up less space on your computer, you can archive it using one of the archivers, for example, 7Zip or WinRAR. Both programs are quite popular, but the first one is distributed free of charge, and you will have to pay for using the second one for more than the period limited by the trial version.

To compress a document using the 7Zip archiver, right-click on the file, then left-click on the 7Zip line first, and then on the inscription "Add to" file_name ". Then the archive will be created automatically.

If you want to set certain parameters before archiving, select the line "Add to archive". Then a window like the one in the screenshot below will open.

Using the archiver, you can significantly reduce the size of the document, as well as create an archive consisting of several files, compressed and combined with each other. This will greatly facilitate their storage and transmission by e-mail. Just before sending an archived PDF file, make sure that the recipient also has an archiver installed, otherwise he will not be able to open the archive.

Note A: Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader are not the same thing. Reader is free, but its PDF editing features are extremely limited, so you can only reduce the size of documents in Acrobat. However, Adobe Acrobat is a paid program. And if you do not have it and you do not want to buy it, use other options for compressing PDF documents that are not related to it.

The PDF file size can be large for two reasons:

• high quality of documents, for example, when scanning, a high resolution was chosen;
• a large number of pages in the document, while sometimes only one or a few pages are needed from the entire document.

How to save a single page from a multipage PDF file

We will use the smallpdf.com resource. Upload your document to the site and select the pages that should be in the final document. The choice can be made with the mouse or simply specify the required page numbers. Then click the "Split PDF" button and download the file with the result. Thus, you can remove one page, and also leave one page in the document.

You can also simply print the desired pages from the document on a virtual PDF printer, how to do this is described in detail.

How to reduce the size of a PDF file

Some people try to compress PDF files with archivers (an excellent article about that), but this does not give a serious result, since any images are almost not compressed, so you need to act differently - reduce the quality of documents.

It is better to use the same site smallpdf.com for compression. Upload your document and click Compress PDF. In most cases, the size of the original document will be greatly reduced.

Sometimes the size can decrease several times, while the quality, of course, deteriorates, but it is completely uncritical.

Read our other articles about working with PDF format and new questions, we will be happy to help you!