Sometimes you just need your pdf to be a bit smaller.  Maybe you have a really slow ftp server and a small file size would just make your life that much easier; or perhaps there is a file size limit on your server; maybe you just want to email something and the original file size is too darn big.

Whatever your reason, there is a super easy way to shrink your pdf files on a Mac (hooray for Mac!).  All you need to do is follow these easy steps:

  1. Open your original pdf file
  2. File –> Save As
    1. A box will pop up that looks just like the one below – in the Quartz Filter drop down menu select Reduce File Size
    2. Click the Save button

Shrink PDF

The sample PDF that I used it on was a mere 578 KB in file size to start with, and once I followed these instructions it went down to a paltry 58KB!

Now, as long as your pdf isn’t full of fancy dancy images this type of pdf shrinking will work fine for you.  This is just a quick fix for simple files.

Voila!