Best Ways to Compress PDF Files

The PDF acronym stands for Portable Document Format. We guess you already know, that it is a lightweight file format ideal for sharing over the internet since it is easily viewed and compatible with most devices and cloud storage services (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, etc…). All of this makes PDFs one of the most popular and most shared file formats in the world!

PDF files can be quite large sometimes, especially if they are packed with rich content. This is mainly true for PDFs containing a large number of images. For this reason, many users are looking for a way to compress PDFs, since large files cannot be easily shared via conventional email services like Gmail which limit is around 10MB per email.

There are various ways you can compress PDF files, but the most notable and easier ones are by using different programs and online compression tools. The only problem is finding the right one since most of them have some limitations or have low compression quality. 

EasyPDF

EasyPDF is one of the best online tools that you can use to compress PDF files for free without using any software. It doesn’t matter if you use Mac, Windows, or Linux since everything is done online directly from the browser. You just need to upload or drag and drop the PDF file to an empty box in order to compress it. Then just wait a few minutes for it to compress and you are good to go! The file will be ready for you to download to your computer. For example, if you upload a 16MB file you will be able to get get a 4MB file compressed.

Advantages:

• The tool is extremely easy to use.
• You can compress PDFs directly from Google Drive or Dropbox.
• You only need to use a browser like Chrome, Mozilla and Safari.
• There is no need for registration.
• EasyPDF is secure and anonymous and there are no ads.

Disadvantages:

If the file is very large (> 100MB) sometimes the compression will fail and you will have to try a few more times in order for it to succeed. 

iLovePDF

Like EasyPDF, it is a free web tool that will help you compress PDF files with ease. The functionalities are pretty much the same only iLovePDF has a little less attractive user interface. 

Advantages:

• Users get to choose the compression quality.
• Compress PDF directly from Google Drive and Dropbox.
• You only need to use a browser like Chrome, Mozilla and Safari.
• There is no need for registration.

Disadvantages:

• If the file is very large (> 100MB) sometimes it cannot be compressed.
• The tool changes the original name of your file to: nameilovepdf-compressed.pdf

ORPALIS PDF Reducer

This PDF compressor program is quite advanced as it incorporates automatic color detection and design analysis. This can considerably compress the file without noticeable quality losses which is amazing. The program resamples images to reduce their quality so that they will still look just as good, but with drastically lower size. 

This is due to the fact that many images we use have too much unnecessary data in them which this program tackles by reducing them to a point that they still look good. The process is done fairly quickly, but it requires more CPU usage. This program is not free, but you can try out its trial version here.

Free PDF Compressor

This is one of the simplest PDF file compression programs available on the market. There are only 5 compression options you can choose from: Screen (low resolution), eBook (medium resolution), Printer (high quality), Prepress (high quality, color-preserving), and Default (wide variety of uses). 

With the progress bar that appears at the bottom of the program, you can easily calculate the time that this process will take. The CPU usage of this program is minimal, so it can be used on almost any computer. The Free PDF Compressor program is completely free to use and can be download from the following link.

Whether it’s large e-books, user manuals, or interactive PDFs, files can easily get larger than expected. With the help of one of the many compression tools and programs available out there, you can keep the file size low while keeping the quality mostly intact.