Images make up a significant part of the size of typical PDF file. The software is compatible with OS X 10.4 and supports PDF Services, droplets, and AppleScript. PDF Shrink is ideal for consumers and small businesses that need to produce PDFs at a quality and file size appropriate for use on the Web, as email attachments, CD-ROMs and for on-screen reading.

All rights reserved.PDF Shrink can reduce most PDF files - including those created by Mac OS X iLife and iWork applications, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Word & PowerPoint - by as much as 90% of their original size. Here’s the link to the Macworld article.Ĭopyright 2008-2023 Christian Boyce. UPDATE: I just learned, thanks to an article on, that you can adjust the amount of compression performed by the “Smaller PDF” filter, which means you can adjust the quality too. But, a lot of times it will be, and since Preview is right there on your Mac already, it is certainly worth a try. In some cases the quality will not be very good after being compressed. However, compression is not always so neat and clean. Here are some screen shots showing you the original and the reduced-size versions (look in the title bars– the smaller one says “smaller”). Of course, before emailing it we want to check the quality. The reduced-size version is less than 25% as big as the original. In this example, I got info on the reduced-size PDF and looky how much smaller it is:

You don’t want to over-write the original. You should give your reduced-size PDF a new name before clicking “Save” because you will want to be able to compare the reduced one to the original. Experiment if you’d like but for our purposes here, use “Reduce File Size.” I don’t think I’ve ever used any of them. Ordinarily, it says “Quartz Filter: None.” Change it to say “Quartz Filter: Reduce File Size.” Below: the other choices, in case you’re interested. (If you don’t see a box this big, click the triangle (boxed in blue here) to expand it.) Notice the “Quartz Filter: Reduce File Size” (boxed in red). UPDATE: In Mac OS X Lion, Preview’s File menu doesn’t have a Save As… command! It does have an Export… command, and that’s what you’ll choose in Lion. Get your document open in Preview, then choose Save As… from Preview’s File menu.

That’s too big to email, so you need to compress it. You can see the size (boxed in red): 13.8 megabytes.

Here’s the Get Info box for the Keynote ’09 Manual (you know: click on the icon once, then File/Get Info). (If Acrobat opens when you double-click a PDF, try Control-clicking on a PDF’s icon and then choosing “Open With…” and then “Preview.”) Here’s an easy way to do it, and it uses Apple’s Preview program, something that comes with every Mac. Sometimes you have a PDF that you want to compress, usually because you want to email it and you know it’s too big to send.

Os x compress pdf