Compress a PDF on a Mac

How to compress a PDF on a Mac usually starts in Preview. File, then Export, then the Quartz Filter menu. Reduce File Size is a fixed recipe. It recompresses images inside the PDF at a quality Apple chose. You do not type 200 KB, 1 MB, or the number in a bounce message. You get whatever that recipe produces, and you only learn the new size after the export finishes.

That is enough for some photographs and useless for others. A text export with a few embedded fonts may barely shrink, because the filter is aimed at images. A scan of a contract may shrink a lot and look softer. ColorSync Utility can apply the same kind of filter. It still does not take a target. A PDF reducer on a Mac that only offers a filter is a different tool from one that stops at a size you set.

Printing to PDF again is another guess. It can flatten a heavy scan, and it can also wrap a small text file in a new, larger copy. Saving a duplicate from the title bar does not shrink anything. Changing the filename does not shrink anything. Zipping the PDF on the Desktop trims little once the PDF is already compressed, and some servers refuse the archive or count it toward the same cap.

The tool above is not a Mac application you install. It runs in the browser, on the Mac you already have. It opens with 200 KB selected, the same chip as the home page. 500 KB, 1 MB, and 2 MB sit beside it. Custom takes any target from the published range, typed in KB or MB. To shrink a PDF on a Mac to a mailbox cap or some other number, choose that number before you compress.

The file you download is at or under the size you chose. If that size cannot be reached, pdfly tells you the smallest size it got to and does not give you a file that is still over the target. A PDF already under the target comes back as it is. Gentler passes stop at the first size that fits. Rasterizing turns pages into images. It runs last, and only if you allow it.

Make a PDF smaller on a Mac when you know the number, not when you hope a filter lands near it. Reduce PDF size on Mac OS X with the same steps. The operating system version does not change the target. Older Preview builds hide the Quartz Filter in a slightly different Export sheet. None of them add a kilobyte field. If you need 300 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, or 4 MB spelled out as chips, use Compress a PDF to a specific size. Mailbox caps of 10 MB, 20 MB, and 25 MB are on PDF too big to email.

Leave rasterizing off when someone else has to search, copy, or fill the text. The lighter passes clean the file, subset fonts, recompress images, and refry the PDF. Those passes keep the words as text. Allow rasterizing only when the size is still out of reach and a picture of each page is acceptable. Words on a rasterized page cannot be selected or searched.

A scan from the iPhone or from a desktop scanner is often images already, so there is little text to protect. Shrinking those images is usually what gets the file under the target. A report full of photographs works the same way. A text export with no pictures is often small enough already, and it comes back unchanged when it is under the size you set. Preview's filter cannot tell you that. It still runs the recipe.

You can upload a PDF up to 100 MB. More than 500 pages is rejected, and so is a password-protected PDF or a file pdfly cannot read. The target has to sit between 8 KB and 100 MB. The upload and the file pdfly makes are deleted within 1 hour. Download the result before you close the page. pdfly does not keep a copy for you.

Run the original, not the Preview export, when you still have it. A filter that already recompressed the images leaves less for the next pass to do, and it may have softened pages you wanted to keep. The original plus a target is a cleaner job than a filtered copy plus the same target.

If the result says the target cannot be reached, the smallest size on that line is the floor for this file with the passes you allowed. Turn rasterizing on and run it again when pictures of the pages are good enough. If that floor is still over the size you need, the pages are the limit. This page compresses one PDF. When several smaller files are acceptable, split the PDF by size instead. Neither tool changes the page size from A4 to letter. Page dimensions and file size are different problems.

Acrobat's Reduce File Size command is the same shape of tool as the Quartz filter. It applies a preset. It does not ask for the number you were given. Use the size field on this page when the number is the requirement. Keep the original on the Mac. The copy pdfly made is temporary.

1. Drop the PDF in the tool above. You do not install an application.
2. Keep 200 KB, or choose another chip, or type a size in KB or MB.
3. Leave rasterizing off unless you need a smaller file more than selectable text.
4. Press the button, then download the file and use that download.

The compressor is the same tool as on the home page. This page only explains the Mac path, so a person who searched for how to compress a PDF on a Mac is not sent through a filter that cannot hit 200 KB.