As you may have already known, PDF files are some of the most well-known and widely used document formats today. It’s so popular thanks to its positive attributes. For one, they preserve the integrity of every element of the file. The document would look the same regardless of the device or software used to open it. Another benefit of using PDF files is that they can support various algorithms for compressing images on the file, which makes them more compact unlike other document formats like Word.
However, there will be instances when due to the images used for the PDF file, the size of your document would considerably grow in terms of size. To fix this, there are ways to compress the PDF file to reduce its sizes, such as using websites or Adobe Acrobat. Here are the scenarios when it is best to compress your PDF file.
Scenario One: When Your PDF File Takes Up Too Much Space
Perhaps one of the best reasons to compress PDF is when it takes up too much space in either your computer or in your mobile device. Similar to any other type of file like songs, videos, and images, PDF documents (or any other type of document in this regard) could eat up some of the space in your phone, computer, or even cloud storage app. And if some PDF files are too large to be stored, they could eat up so much space in your device that there will no longer be storage left for the other important stuff that you would need to store in your device. The size of your PDF file would vary based on numerous factors, such as the number of pages in that document as well as the type, quality, and quantity of images in that document.
Usually, a PDF file with no pictures and only includes text would have a size of a few kilobytes (KBs). On the other hand, scanned textbooks in PDF format complete with high-quality images as well as well-designed pages would have a size of a few megabytes. A few PDF files with large sizes (usually more than 10 MB) would be equivalent to a dozen songs in MP3 format or even a few hundred images in JPG or PNG format. Therefore, it is important to consider the size of the PDF file that you will create or download. Also, consider how often you will have to use the document on your computer or mobile device before you store it. But if you have a large-sized PDF file you would need to use very often, you might consider reducing its size so that it wouldn’t take up too much space in your phone or computer.
Scenario Two: When You Can’t Upload Your PDF to Email or Social Media
Many people often encounter certain situations when they need to upload their PDF files to a website or when they would need to send it via email. This happens especially to employees who have a few reports to send or writers needing to submit manuscripts online. However, these people would also experience a scenario where they would have difficulty attaching their PDF files to a website or their emails. And the primary reason they would get for that is file size.
Most websites and emails have file size limits where users could not upload any document or file that exceeds the file size limit. Usually, the file size limit of most websites and even emails ranges from a few kilobytes to a few megabytes. Such limits in file size exist not just for PDF documents, but other file types as well including images and videos. Editing a PDF file to reduce its size is a difficult task to do. With that being said, if you need to send your PDF file to an email or a website without having to start all over again just to edit it, the best thing you can do is to compress your PDF so that it could meet the file size limit of your website or email. You would also be able to share or upload files faster when you reduce their size.
Scenario Three: When You Want to Share Files Faster
Speaking of sharing files, the size of your file also affects how fast you will be able to share your files with other people. And that is regardless of whether you are using Bluetooth or other faster forms of file sharing, like using cloud storage apps. The reason for this is self-explanatory and we could compare it to moving a box from one place to another. If a box is light and has few or no contents at all, you could be able to move it in a breeze. On the contrary, if that box has a lot of contents inside it, then moving it to a different location would become a challenge.
Also Read: How to Repair Corrupted PDFs and How to Prevent Them
The same thing happens for sharing files with large sizes. The larger your PDF file is, the longer it would take for you to share it with other people. Sharing large files could also be a problem in itself since it has more chances of failing compared to sharing smaller ones. This is because the lengthier the file sharing process is, the more prone it becomes to failure. Therefore, it is best to share smaller files with other people so that the process becomes faster, more efficient, and less prone to failure. But if the large size PDF file that you will share is very important, then it would be best to reduce its size first before you share it with your friends, classmates, or workmates. That way, you could be able to share your file at a shorter time and there is also less chance for the file transfer process to fail.
