14 DAY TRIAL // PDF compression applications are useful for reducing the size of PDF documents, especially if you have numerous such files that you would like to copy on external devices with a low storage capacity. It's also handy for getting past the restrictions set by email services when you're trying to send PDFs as email attachments.
This is typically done by reducing the quality of graphical elements or by eliminating PDF information, such as author or keywords. In the following article, we're looking into two free utilities, Reduce PDF Size and ORPALIS PDF Reducer Free, as well as a commercial tool, PDF Compressor, in order to show you how to easily reduce the size of PDFs with as little effort as possible.
Reduce PDF Size
In the main app window of Reduce PDF Size, open the File menu and click Add PDF files (or press Ctrl+A) and use the popup file browser to find and add PDF documents to the task list. Hold down Ctrl while clicking to select multiple PDFs and add all at once.
The task list shows the full path to the PDF files, along with the current File Size. Open the Option menu to choose the preferred quality for the new PDF files, depending on what you want to use them for: Screen view-only Quality, Low Quality (eBook), High Quality (Printer), High Quality (Prepress) or Default Quality. Then open the File menu, click Reduce PDF File Size (or press Ctrl+R) and tell the tool where you want to save the new files (select the output folder and click Ok).
Reduce PDF Size reveals the path to the Output PDF files and File Size with each processed file. It beeps after all files have been processed, and a message pops up on the screen to let you know the job is done. Click Ok for confirmation and open the new PDF files to check quality.
ORPALIS PDF Reducer Free
In the main app window of ORPALIS PDF Reducer Free, click the ... button next to the Source box and use the popup tree view to find and open a folder to process all containing PDF documents (any existing files of other types will be ignored). Click the ... button next to the Destination box and use the popup treeview to tell the app where you want to save the new files with reduced size (select an output directory and click Ok).
Click Start batch to begin the task. Once it's over, you can find out how much space was saved by compressing the PDFs as well as total processed time, files, pages, input and output size. Click Ok for conformation and open the new files to inspect the quality.
PDF Compressor
To use PDF Compressor, you have to enter an email address and name (doesn't require confirmation by logging into your email account).
In the main window, click Open and use the file browser to locate and open a PDF document (hold down Ctrl while clicking files to select multiple PDFs to add at once) or drop PDFs into the panel while navigating Windows Explorer (folders cannot be dropped).
You can preview the pages of each PDF file and click the PDF titles on top to select them. The original file size is displayed, along with a percentage level, which represents how much size can be reduced by PDF Compressor.
Click Compress, choose the file location of the compressed PDFs in the popup tree view and click Ok. Once the task is done, the application reveals the new size of the files.
Play our video guide to find out how to compress PDF documents using these three tools. You can also download Reduce PDF Size, ORPALIS PDF Reducer Free and PDF Compressor.
Use PDF Compression Tools to Reduce File Size
Save storage space and get passed the size limitations set by email attachments by compressing PDF files. Play our video guide to find out how to do this with three Windows tools. Read our article for more info: http://www.softpedia.com/blog/use-pdf-compression-tools-to-reduce-file-size-504962.shtml
