When creating a PDF for commercial printing purposes we recommend you do not allow your design software to down sample any of the document’s images. This provides you with the highest possible quality PDF possible; however, the resulting file size is often quite large. Use some of these tips to reduce your document file size without sacrificing quality. Make sure to review your document after executing any of the techniques below to look for any negative effects on images, illustrations, or design effects.
1. Using Postscripts
Creating postscripts before creating a PDF can help optimize file size from the beginning. After creating a postscript use a good distilling software to create a PDF.
If you are using an Adobe® software visit help.adobe.com for assistance in creating postscripts with your version.
2. Adobe Acrobat® Save As
After making all final changes to your PDF document. Open it in Adobe Acrobat® and navigate to File>Save As. When you use Save, the software simply appends your changes to the original document, potentially increasing the file size. However, when you chose Save As, the software re-writes the file and optimizes the document often decreasing size.
3. Reduce File Size
Navigate to Document>Reduce File Size.
After apply the Reduce File Size feature, check the document to ensure there are no negative effects.
4. Audit Space Usage
Navigate to Advanced>PDF Optimizer. Click Audit Space Usage.
The window that appears identifies the various elements within the document and their associated file size. Although there is no way within the Audit Space Usage window to reduce individual element sizes, this will help you identify problem areas to address individually.
5. PDF Optimizer
There are many features tied to your PDF document by default that you may not have a need for. From the PDF Optimizer panel you will be able to disable some of these features. By removing these unused functions you can decrease file size without effecting quality at all. Once you’ve selected all the options to remove, apply the new settings and select Save As from the File menu to re-optimize the file size.
