There are times when you need to be able to compress a PDF file so it can be emailed, uploaded or shared but the file size of your PDF document is too large. Here are some ways you can compress a PDF file.
Adobe Acrobat Professional
If you have access to Adobe Acrobat Professional within your university, PDF files can be compressed with the Reduce File Size option. Using this feature, I was able to compress by PDF file from 15.6 MB to 3.2 MB.
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The following video demonstrates how to compress a PDF using the Reduce File Size feature of Adobe Acrobat Professional.
SmallPDF.Com
SmallPDF.com is a free website that allows you to create and manipulate PDF files. Using this web application I was able to compress my PDF from 15.6 MB to 2.5 MB without any loss of quality.
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The following video demonstrates how to compress a PDF file using SmallPDF.com.