Make PDF Smaller

Hello -

I have a 5.5mb PDF I need to make smaller for e mailing. I looked on this website
How to Make PDF Files Smaller on the Mac | Chron.com
where I was given three options, none of which worked. I'm running 10.6.8
Suggestions for how to proceed are appreciated
Thanks
Bob

Option 1 - Preset Resize made the file much smaller but the pictures became very blurry

Step 1
Open your “Applications” folder on your Mac. You can access the Applications folder through LaunchPad and your Finder.

Step 2
Open the “Utilities” folder.

Related Reading: How to Open FrameMaker Files on a Mac

Step 3
Double-click the “ColorSync Utility” icon to open the application.

Step 4
Click “File” in the top menu bar, then click “Open.”

Step 5
Locate the PDF you want to resize on your Mac and click “Open.”

Step 6
Click the tab next to “Filter” at the bottom of your document.

Step 7
Click “Reduce file size.” The filter provided in ColorSync Utility reduces the scale of your PDF by 50% and restrict images to a maximum of 512 by 128 pixels.


Option 2 - Custom Resize Settings - at the end of the procedure I was not given an "APPLY" button.

Step 1
Click “File” in the top menu bar, then click “New Window” in ColorSync Utility.

Step 2
Click the gray circle with a white arrow to the right of “Reduce File Size,” then click “Duplicate filter.” This will create a second copy of the same filter called “Reduce File Size Copy.”

Step 3
Click the gray arrow to the left of “Reduce File Size Copy” to expand the settings.

Step 4
Click the gray arrow to the left of “Image Sampling.”

Step 5
Type the scale, resolution and minimum and maximum pixels you want to apply to any images in your PDF. Click the tab next to “Quality” to set your image quality to low, medium or high.

Step 6
Click the gray arrow next to “Image Compression.”

Step 7
Click the tab next to “Mode” and select “Automatic,” “Uncompressed” or “JPEG.”

Step 8
Click the slider next to “Quality” and move it to the quality level you want.

Step 9
Open the PDF you want to resize and apply the Reduce File Size Copy filter as described in the steps 6 and onward of the previous section

Option 3 - Preview - I clicked File in Preview but there was no option for EXPORT.

Step 1
Open Preview, click "File" and "Open," then locate your PDF. Click "Open."

Step 2
Click "File," then "Export."

Step 3
Click the location on your hard drive where you want to save the PDF, such as "Desktop" or "Documents."

Step 4
Click the "Quartz Filter" tab.

Step 5
Click "Reduce file size."

Step 6
Click "Save."

I also tried Compressing the file using Save As / Reduce File Size but that left a the pictures blurry, too.

Generally, we recommend using the Preview application to reduce the size of large graphic files, however, since PDF files are already in a somewhat compressed format and can be comprised of text in addition to graphics, reduction methods usually do not work. What you can try to do is split up the large PDF file into smaller parts and email them that way. However, that requires software which can be expensive. PDFPen

Thanks - in between posting the question and restarting my crashed computer I had a flash of inspiration. I increased the resolution of the pictures that came out blurry in the attempt to resize the PDF. Then I did a Save As / Reduce File Size and the pictures were of ok sharpness and the entire file size down to a more e mail friendly 1 mb.

Still curious, though - why didn't my preview application have an EXPORT option. Is it becasue that didn't come with 10.6 or might it indicate a problem with my computer?

A more simple solution in the future might be to use a cloud service (like Dropbox or OneDrive) and simply send someone a link to the file.

It's possible that the instructions don't reflect the features available in 10.6. Without knowing more (I don't remember Preview in SL that well), I'm going to say that's probably it.