Simple way to optimize PDF files for web

Simple way to optimize PDF files for web

The post is not about CSS menu, but helpful for everyone who publish PDF documents online. PDFs are quite popular in the Web, but often used without any optimization. PDF file can contain huge images with masks, media files, fonts and unnecessary information. I have come across so often with huge PDF files, 100-200 Mb published online,
opening very slow in a browser. So I decided to write the post with the simple solution on how to optimize PDF easily and without losing quality.

PDF optimization, 10 times smaller, lossless compression

Optimize PDF file for web

You can find many detailed articles about creating smaller PDFs and optimization. It's very complicated. I know you are in hurry and don't need details. Quick and easy solution is always better.

Required software (it's free):

- Actobat Pro.

Acrobat 7.0 Pro - Free giveaway from Adobe - http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html
For Windows it can be downloaded separately, for Mac in the Creative Suite.

The trick is simple:

- Save your PDF as postscript file(.ps)
- Covert back to PDF.

(If you get errors try File=>Reduce File Size before saving in .ps format)

The process in images:

Save your PDF as postscript file
Save your PDF as postscript file
Covert back to PDF

The process fix many errors in PDF, if some other software require correct PDF file, e.g. flipping book PDF publication http://webstunning.com/pdf-publisher/ it's a perfect remedy for any problems with PDF.

Flip book PDF Publisher

Need more compression? (with some lose of quality)

- Preferences => Convert to PDF => PostScript/EPS => Adobe PDF Settings - Smallest File Size

Edit => Preferences => Convert to PDF => PostScript/EPS => Adobe PDF Settings - Smallest File Size
Preferences => Convert to PDF => PostScript/EPS => Adobe PDF Settings - Smallest File Size
Preferences => Convert to PDF => PostScript/EPS => Adobe PDF Settings - Smallest File Size
Preferences => Convert to PDF => PostScript/EPS => Adobe PDF Settings - Smallest File Size
Preferences => Convert to PDF => PostScript/EPS => Adobe PDF Settings - Smallest File Size

If you like to delve into the settings, use built-in PDF Optimizer in the Acrobat Pro. It has many options but resulting file size can be bigger. (Top menu => Advanced => PDF Optimizer)

Anyway the simple conversion PDF-PostScript-PDF works better for me usually.

Original article