PDF Optimizer

PDF Optimizer is a command-line application that optimizes PDFs to increase webpage loading speed when opening these files types for view, by displaying the first page without sending the entire document to the browser. It includes other useful features as well, such as PDF encryption and metadata editing.

Note that the functionality of the program should not be misunderstood, as PDF Optimizer is not developed for reducing PDF size on disk.

Since this is a command-line utility, you can call the executable file from a Command Prompt dialog. Without configuring any options, you simply need to specify the source PDF file using the file browser, as well as point out the saving directory and file name.

As far as settings are concerned, it is possible to set an owner and user password for unprotected PDFs and specify the encryption method, as well as disallow printing, editing, copying, changes of form fields or annotations, content extraction, assembly (insert, rotate, delete pages, create bookmarks), or printing at digital quality.

Alternatively, you may turn off all rights. Other options of PDF Optimizer let you overwrite or skip existing files, batch process files by directories (with or without subfolders), set metadata information (title, subject, author, keywords, creator, producer, creation and modification dates), as well as create an error file. These are just some of the options provided by the tool.

PDF Optimizer is light on the system resources and carries out an optimization job in no time. Although the size of the output PDFs is sometimes larger than the source (due to extra information for optimization support), the files become enabled for fast web view mode, as shown in the "PDF" tab of the files' Properties panel. Unfortunately, PDF Optimizer has not been updated for a long time.