How to Make a PDF Smaller

How many times did you try to upload a PDF document into a portal and failed because of the large file size? It happens from time to time and it’s completely normal because most of the online portals that accept PDF as a submission format restrict the size.

In this post, we are going to learn how to make a PDF smaller without losing too much quality. And we’re going to achieve it with a helpful tool “Compress PDF” by PDF Candy! This can help you with sending large files and save some disk space on your computer. Stay along because it’s going to be a joyful ride!

What are PDF Documents?

Before you learn how to make a PDF smaller, it wouldn’t hurt to learn about the format a little, would it?

If you didn’t know already, PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It’s been the standard ISO 32000-2 since 1993. And it was developed by the mighty Adobe Inc. The goal was to standardize the process of sharing documents across multiple devices.

For example, if you have a Microsoft Office document (.doc/.docx) and share it with your colleagues via Zoom or Skype, only the ones who have the program installed will be able to view it. Moreover, if they don’t have the same font as you do, the characters in the document might show up as unsupported symbols!

To prevent all of these from happening, we use PDF. It converts texts and images into bits and works as a standard format that supports all devices. Most modern devices come with browsers that can open PDFs directly. So, the need for installing dedicated software is gone.

PDF Compression

Now, coming to the topic of today’s post – possibility to shrink PDF. Unlike with file compressors that create archives, PDF compression means reducing PDF size while keeping its format without compromising the accuracy of the information. Sure, you will lose quality once you compress PDF file, but the information will be untouched.

When you learn how to make a PDF smaller, you’ll notice that you lose quality. It’s especially prevalent if you’re trying to fit an image into a smaller size.

There are two basic compression types that PDFs can utilize. They are Lossless compression and Lossy compression.

• Lossless Compression: As the name suggests, this method retains the quality of the original document. How does it do it? With help from an algorithm that creates reference points and exports them into the final document. It’s mostly done on text documents.
• Lossy Compression: Lossy compression comes in handy when there is an image involved. Inherently, images contain more information than text documents. Hence, they are larger in size. With lossy compression, the bits of information are rearranged in a way so that the size decreases.

And to learn how to make a PDF smaller, you need a software that contains the algorithm. PDF Candy Desktop for Windows is such a handy productivity app that allows you to perform multiple tasks regarding PDFs including compressing PDF.

To download the app, you need to visit PDF Candy website and scroll down to find the ‘Download PDF Candy for Windows’ option. Click the button and let the software download. Once done, install the software on your computer.

How to Make a PDF Smaller: PDF Candy Desktop for Windows

In this section of our post, we’re going to learn how to make a PDF smaller with a few simple clicks. You’re going to break the process down into steps. So, follow along.

Step 1: Download and open PDF Candy Desktop for Windows

Download PDF compressor from the official website. Open the program to find various operations that you can perform with a click. For the sake of this post, we’re going to use the “Compress PDF” tool. Click the corresponding icon to proceed.

Step 2: Add PDF file

Drag and drop your PDF into the program’s window or use the “Add PDF file” button to add a file to PDF file reducer.

Step 3: Compress PDF

Once you have your file/files selected, you’ll find a green button on the bottom right corner of the software labeled COMPRESS. Besides this button, you can select where do you want to save the final file after compression. Select the location on your computer that you see fit. Press COMPRESS. You’ve almost learned how to make a PDF smaller!

Step 4: Save the compressed PDF file

After you press the green button, a progress bar will show up. And when the compressing PDF process is done, a popup message will let you open the folder or edit the results. You can perform various operations like Rotate PDF, PDF to Word, PDF to JPG, Split PDF, and so on from the Edit Results menu.

And you’re done. You now have learned how to make PDF smaller with the help of the PDF Candy Desktop for Windows.

How to Make a PDF Smaller: PDF Candy Online

We highly recommend downloading the desktop app as it lets you perform various tasks offline. But if you don’t want to go that route and need a quick way to compress PDF online, visit PDF Candy website’s “Compress PDF” tool to do it!

Step 1: Upload a file

Just upload the PDF document that you want to make smaller by clicking ‘+ Add file’. You can drop it or add it from your Google Drive or Dropbox as well. Once the file is uploaded, you can select the degree of compression required by selecting from the dropdown menu.

Step 2: Set the PDF compression level

There are three levels of compression. Maximum compression makes the smallest files but at the cost of quality. Recommended compression is perfect to get the balance between size and quality. And if you need a little bit shaved off from your PDF, you can go with minimum compression.

Step 3: Save new file

Once you’re happy with your settings, you can press the Compress button labeled in blue. It will take approximately 10 seconds to compress 1 document. When done, you can click the big green Download file button to download the compressed document.

You can make PDF smaller in a fast and easy way if you have a reliable tool for that at your disposal. PDF Candy website includes not only a PDF compressor, but plenty of other useful PDF tools as well. If you are looking for other PDF tutorials, you can find the guides on how to convert JPG to PDF, combine PDF files, extract images from PDF and the review of the best print to PDF software on our blog.