Looking for a FREE pdf compressor tool

[joiwind]

Yes, so I'm looking for a FREE pdf compressor tool - any suggestions please ?
Thanks.

[Curt]

-so why not try Google > I'm feeling lucky > Free pdf compressor ?

[tomos]

There was a thread here which is old now but might be worth a scan:

Software to compress large pdf files
mind you, I dont think there were any free ones that were up to much at the time.

[joiwind]

-so why not try Google > I'm feeling lucky > Free pdf compressor ?

-Curt (July 17, 2012, 04:14 PM)

Curt - I did (but not with gaggle) : and there are NO really free ones. Adobe Reader has a function for this but I don't own Adobe Reader. A lot say they are free but turn about to be trialware.

tomos - thanks for that thread. There's a post there about using IrfanView with a plugin that can do this to some extent.

Thanks guys.

[tomos]

This is probably not practical,
but for individual files you could (I think!) print the PDF to a good customisable PDF printer (I use PDFcreator, watch out for toolbar install) and save with high compression levels and maybe even reduce image resolution settings.

[joiwind]

This is probably not practical,
but for individual files you could (I think!) print the PDF to a good customisable PDF printer (I use PDFcreator, watch out for toolbar install) and save with high compression levels and maybe even reduce image resolution settings.

-tomos (July 17, 2012, 04:49 PM)

Yup, good idea tomos - thanks again.

[Curt]

Free PDF Compressor - CNET Download.com

http://download.cnet...2250_4-10420962.html

-Google > I'm feeling lucky

-remember to only use "Direct Download Link" (288kb):



Genuine portable; no installer.
Tested on 64-bit Win 7.

Edited:
oh, the first compressed pdf file was old enough, the second one was too new.
Okay, this program is crap! Don't bother to test it, unless your pdf files are really old!
-and it can only compress one file at a time.

[IainB]

This is probably not practical,
but for individual files you could (I think!) print the PDF to a good customisable PDF printer (I use PDFcreator, watch out for toolbar install) and save with high compression levels and maybe even reduce image resolution settings.

-tomos (July 17, 2012, 04:49 PM)

I have found this to be practicable (and FREE) for individual files - as opposed to batches of files - in the past, and it is still probably worth a try. However, it will not usually work on (compress) .PDF documents which have security settings set that prevent reassembling or editing of the document.

[kyrathaba]

I didn't investigate if the site can batch-compress, but below is a screenshot of (on top) an original scanned to PDF receipt and check and (2) below that the same file after medium-compression at 65% quality using Neevia Tech PDF Online Compressor. Reduced file size from 584 Kb to 430 Kb, a 26% decrease in file-size.

[kyrathaba]

Another test of the Neevia Tech online compression linked to in my previous post:

I have a directory called /legal/ comprised of sub-directories and files (108 files in 18 sub-directories, and 36 of those files are PDFs. I compressed only the 20 largest of those 36 PDF files). The screenshot below shows the exact same /legal/ directory, zipped, at two different points in time, the 8th of this month (5 days ago), and the 13th (today). No files were added or removed. The only difference is the compression, today, of 20 of the 36 pdf files within:



So, the more recent zip file has "shrunk" by 2.08 Mb. Consider, too, that only 20 of the 108 files were compressed, and that in creating the PDFs initially from LibreOffice, I used relatively conservative resolution (300 dpi) -- the majority of the 20 compressed PDFs contained scanned images. Not shabby, especially considering that this /legal/ directory of mine will likely continue growing over the next few months (years?) {custody/medical issues re: 2 children with ex-spouse } Could add up to many Mb of saved space over a period of time...

I'm not specifically advocating this particular online compressor. Obviously it would be much more efficient to find a means of batch compressing PDFs with given settings.

[hornet]

This discussion remainds me of trying to do the same to lotus files years ago (late 1980's).

There were a few shareware ad freeware programs that could do a reasonable job....  but when I found a program called "sqz!" I was able to get 95% reductions in file size!

.... which helped me immensely when emailing squeezed files using a dial up connection. 

[SwissMatt]

Hello everyone!

I just discovered this post and I wanted to ask if you can have a look at our small online tool we recently developed.
It seems like there are very informed, active members in this forum and I wanted to ask if you can have a look at it and maybe give us some feedback.

Here is the link: Smallpdf.com - online pdf compression tool

I hope you like it and we appreciate any thoughts how we could improve the simple service.

Thanks!

[Tinman57]

I didn't investigate if the site can batch-compress, but below is a screenshot of (on top) an original scanned to PDF receipt and check and (2) below that the same file after medium-compression at 65% quality using Neevia Tech PDF Online Compressor. Reduced file size from 584 Kb to 430 Kb, a 26% decrease in file-size.
 (see attachment in previous post)

-kyrathaba (April 13, 2013, 07:28 PM)

  Gee, I hope this isn't someones real address and phone numbers on the checks..... 

[nikk2]

Great info. I have lots of PDF files on my PC. I think it's time to cut my space.

[Edvard]

There is a Windows version of Ghostscript: http://www.ghostscri...download/gsdnld.html
Use this at the command line, replacing "gs" with 'C://path/to/ghostscript/bin/gswin32c.exe' and your filenames where obvious:

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf

OR... PdfTK

pdftk in-file.pdf output out-file.pdf compress

YMMV