I’ve got a pdf file I made by simply scanning 36 sheets of paper.
It’s huge.
Most pdf files aren’t nearly as big as this one, even those having far more pages.
I know I could shrink it if I had Acrobat. I don’t, though. So is there any way for me to shrink this thing?
I need to shrink it because I’m trying to upload it to a website, and I think the website is not enjoying what I’m trying to do to it.
There’s a lot of free online resizer programs, I have use this one before.
Just choose your file
Then pick PDF in the drop down box
Then check resize image.
The reason for the size most likely is that the text is stored as image files rather than as text. Most pdf’s are mostly text with some graphics so they are much smaller.
You could edit each of the scanned pages and change the resolution from whatever you scanned them at (probably 150-300 dpi - dots per inch) to something less but still readable. Depending on the font size of the original, you might be able to go down to 75 dpi.
The easiest way to do this is to save them as jpg files and set the quality level to something less than 100% when you save them. Some photo editing software will let you change the dpi level without changing the print size but I don’t think that is normally available. Maybe GIMP has that feature. I’m sure photoshop would.
Otherwise, you can use OCR (optical character recognition) software to convert the text to actual text. Most OCR will also preserve the graphics and formatting. Check download.com for any free OCR programs. When you search on OCR, set the license type to “freeware” to see just what’s free.
The simplest approach would be to zip the PDF.
That will help of course but since zip is a lossless method and jpeg is lossy, saving the jpgs at a lower quality setting will probably save you more. Converting from image to text via OCR will save much, much more.