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How to Reduce Size of PDF Files in Windows 10

Reducing the file size of PDF documents is often necessary to make them easier to share via email or upload to websites. Large PDF files can consume substantial storage space and be difficult to work with. Fortunately, Windows 10 provides several methods to compress PDFs and reduce their size.

Why Compress PDFs

Here are some key reasons you may want to compress PDFs:

  • Email Attachments – Email services often limit attachment sizes to 25MB or less. Compressing PDFs enables you to send larger documents.
  • Cloud Storage – Services like Dropbox and Google Drive have storage limits. Compressing PDFs saves space so you can store more files.
  • Website Uploads – Websites have file size limits for uploads. Compressing PDFs lets you upload larger documents.
  • Faster Downloads – Smaller PDF files download faster for recipients. This improves their experience accessing the documents.
  • Work Efficiency – Large PDF files can be slow to open, edit and search. Compressing them improves performance.

Methods to Compress PDFs

There are several easy methods to compress PDFs in Windows 10:

Use Adobe Acrobat Online Compressor

Adobe offers a free online PDF compressor tool. It provides three compression levels:

  • Low (little compression)
  • Medium
  • High (maximum compression)

To use it:

  1. Navigate to the tool webpage above
  2. Drag and drop your PDF into the tool
  3. Select a compression level
  4. Click “Compress”
  5. Download the compressed PDF file

This method is quick, easy, and effective for reducing PDF sizes. It works best for PDFs with images. The high compression level works well in most cases.

Use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC has a “Reduce File Size” tool for compressing PDFs. To use it:

  1. Open your PDF file in Acrobat Pro DC
  2. Click “File” > “Save As Other” > “Reduced Size PDF”
  3. Select compression options
  4. Click “Save”

Acrobat analyzes the PDF and compresses elements like images, fonts, and text efficiently. This preserves quality while drastically reducing size.

Zip the PDF

You can place a PDF file into a compressed ZIP folder to reduce its size. To do this:

  1. Right-click your PDF file
  2. Hover over “Send to”
  3. Click “Compressed (zipped) folder”

A new compressed folder is created containing the PDF file. When recipients extract the PDF from this ZIP folder, the original PDF quality is preserved.

Use Microsoft Word Export to PDF

If you have the original document in Word, you can export a compressed PDF:

  1. Open the Word document
  2. Click “File” > “Save As”
  3. Change the file type to “PDF”
  4. Click “Options”
  5. Check “Save as optimized PDF”
  6. Click “Save”

Word exports an optimized PDF compressed for smaller size. This works best for documents without many images.

Tips for Best Results

Here are some tips when compressing PDFs:

  • Use lossless compression methods like Adobe Acrobat tools or ZIP folders to preserve maximum quality.
  • Lossy methods like Word PDF export may degrade quality, especially for documents with images.
  • Higher compression levels result in smaller files but lower quality. Use the minimum level necessary.
  • Test compression results to ensure documents remain high quality and legible.
  • Save uncompressed originals as backups if needed.
  • Compress images outside PDFs first using tools like Photoshop for better compression.

Following these best practices will enable you to achieve significant PDF size reductions while maintaining quality. Compressing PDFs with Windows 10 tools is easy and essential for managing storage resources and enabling file sharing.

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