PDFshrink 3.1 —Put your PDFs on a diet!
reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad
Developer: Barry Bowden Apago, Inc. http://www.apago.com/pdfshrink Shareware: $35.00 USD A fully functional 10-day demo is available for download. File Size: ca. 1.9 MB Released: April 22, 2004 Help: The product has an easy to use and reasonably developed user guide that also contains FAQs. Requirements: Mac
OS X 10.2 and later including Tiger. Strengths: PDFshrink is an excellent solution for the problem of bloated, oversized PDF files. Depending on the end use for the PDF, you can, with this application, significantly reduce it in side without adversely affecting image quality. Weakness: The software doesn’t do much to decrease the size of formatted, unillustrated word processor documents or PDF containing low resolution (150 DPI) graphics; but it would not be by design, expected to. The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.5. Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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Introduction
Prior to testing PDFshrink, I had only two ways to shrink the size of a PDF file. The first, starting with a file that is not in PDF format is to either print to PDF or print to compressed PDF using Apples Print feature. The second is to use Acrobat 6 or 7 on a PDF file. If you already use Adobe Acrobat 7, you may not need PDFshrink. Acrobat 7 Professional does all that PDFshrink does (except eliminate tiny metadata) and offers finer control; Acrobat 7 Standard does a decent job of reducing file sizes, by narrowing the versions of reader that can open them. However, you can't control how it shrinks them.
Jim Felici noted as in a Macworld mini review of PDFshrink 3.0.1… “When it comes to PDF files, one size, doesn't fit all, especially if you want to use such files on the Web. However, if what I tested proves more universally true, Apago's PDFshrink 3.0.1 can help make many of your larger PDF files smaller by letting you alter image resolution and compression and remove unwanted content.
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Apple's Print Compress PDF Option |
Reduce File Size in Acrobat |
PDFshrink is an excellent solution for the problem of bloated, oversized PDF files. While Mac OS X can easily create PDF files from most applications, these PDF files tend to be rather large and inefficient. The interface allows for setting different compression and resolution choices for color, grayscale and Monochrome images. PDFshrink takes full advantage of Mac OS X multithreading for seamless batch processing. PDFshrink can automatically reduce the size of Mac OS X generated PDF files and those created by Microsoft’s Power Point, Adobe Distiller, InDesign, Illustrator and other popular applications. PDFshrink reduces the size of PDF files by optimizing the resolution and compression method of each image in the PDF file. Not being seriously graphics inclined, of the applications highlighted by the developer, I only use Power Point.
Other elements of a PDF file affected by PDFshrink that can be removed include as metadata and thumbnails, eliminating duplicate images and compressing other parts of a PDF file – Read about these in the manual.
The software’s drag and drop interface allows for setting different compression and resolution choices for color, grayscale and monochrome images. Three common configurations are included; however, the user can create unlimited custom configurations.
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PDFshrink Interface(s) Illustration |
Untested by Me — If you have batches of files to trim down, you'll want PDFshrink. You can create a large queue of files, and PDFshrink will slim them automatically and quickly. ”Batch processing is supported with the ability to load multiple files and folders into a processing queue. PDFshrink simplifies the creation of optimized PDF files even further using Mac OS X\'s new PDF Services. Simply select \"Create PDF Service\" from the Configs menu and name the workflow. It\'s as simple as that. Then, whenever you create a PDF from the Mac OS X Print Center, you can automatically optimize your PDF using PDFshrink.”
Using the Product
Before I share by brief testing, I found the following from the developer’s FAQs both interesting and enlightening.
Q) Why are Mac OS X PDF files so large?
A) When Mac OS X creates a PDF file, it is simply reproducing what would normally go to a printer. The PDF software doesn't look for repeated images such as the background image repeat on each slide of PowerPoint slide show, a small image such as a bullet item in Word, or a company logo that appears on each page of a document. Each time an image is used in your document it is written to the PDF file.
My Screening Tests — I’ve tried the product on two large files. One was a large downloaded print to PDF file. The other was a Power Point presentation that I subsequently used various tools to convert to PDF format and then to compress. I also did a bit of testing on a large article scanned to PDF from hard copy of MacAddict. – More about that later.
PDFshrink is delivered in a Disk Image file and used the conventional install procedures familiar to Macintosh users. If you purchased the software, you’ll want to enter your serial number other test the software free for 10 days.
SIDEBAR NOTE — As a rare exception to my normal practice and recommendations, I encourage you to read the manual before working with the product. The product’s interface is simple but its capability is more complex and is tuned to the specific end use, of your reduced size PDF. The manual provides excellent information on setting the program’s preferences, a key both to size reduction and shrunk PDF end use. Part of this control relies on tuning the image compression and resolution in the output PDF.
The developer has provided three basic processors or configurations as default values. These are eBook, print, and screen—alas, I could not find any detailed explanation of what I would use the choices for in the manual. I did, by assumption, connect to the factoid that PDFshrink makes it easy to optimize PDF files for use on the web, for email attachments and for on-screen reading.
However, the whys and wherefores of the differences escape me. The publisher notes — “You can change any of the default processors or you can create as many new processors as you need to meet resolution targets for you end use/location of the product shrunk PDF.” Why I ask? Without information on why I would want to create custom processors, I did not take time to test this feature. [More about such things in the gripe section.
PDFshrink can, its developer claims, reduce most types of PDF files from 10 to 90% of their original size. It can also convert PostScript, JPEG, TIFF and other formats directly to PDF. Great, and it works; but so can GraphicConverter and Acrobat. Therefore, I suggest you pick the tool(s) you find best fit your work style and needs. Better yet try them all—each has features that it uniquely excels at. [A full toolbox, is better than an empty one – ouch, what an oxymoron].
First and to the point, the only file I was able to shrink, by any mans was that resulting from my Power Point presentation. No change in files size using any of the tools/modes tested above when using a scanned image to PDF (not OCR’s) image or a Print to PDF file downloaded from the internet. Not a surprising result, but a limitation not mentioned in any of the developer’s information. I would have thought that I might be able to somewhat shrink the cookbook pages file I printed to PDF from the web. I wasn’t able to.
I worked on my presentation file to concert it two PDF format
- Acrobat PDF Maker within Power Point
- Print to PDF from within Power Point
- Compress Print to PDF from Within Power Point
I then used PDFshrink on the two larges PDF files; those from Apples Print to PDF and the much smaller PDF file obtained using Acrobat PDF Maker from within my PP file.
Transaction |
Results |
Initial Power Point [PP] File 18.1 MB |
NA |
Print PP File to PDF (Apple) |
64.6 MB {360% Increase} |
Use Acrobat PDF Maker from Power Point File |
7.4 MB {69% Reduction} |
Convert the Acrobat PDF Maker (7.4 MB) conversion with PDFshrink (Screen Processor) |
2.8 MB [62% Reduction} |
Convert the Acrobat PDF Maker conversion with PDFshrink (eBook Processor) |
5.9 MB [20% Reduction |
Convert the Acrobat PDF Maker conversion with PDFshrink (Print Processor) |
No Change |
Convert Apple’s Print to PDF file (64.6 MB) in PDFshrink (Print Processor) |
20.4 MB {From 68% Reduction} |
Used Acrobat Shrink PDF to open only in V. 6 & 7 Menu on the 64.6 MB Print to PDF (Apple) file |
8.1 MB {87% Reduction] |
Initial Power Point File 18.1 MB in Print PP File to a compressed PDF (Apple) |
21.5 MB {Slightly Larger then PP file} |
For this short review, I got good reduction of sizes from one of my test files.
That was enough of a taste to allow me to finish this summary review and gain a little insight into the products interface and an initial look at its strength.
My test were aimed at allowing me to find where and how I could make good use of this excellent product, not to make myself an expert at its use.
I did not achieve the greatest size reduction; not having any high-end graphics files available. Indeed, I shank my PDFs by 60-87%, using the tabulated methods. I’ll keep playing with the software as I run across large PDF files to learn what I can larn. I also only focused my efforts on size reduction for on screen reading, but am likely to work on reducing PDFs for eMail transmittals in the future.
A Single Significant Gripe
I’ve worked over every part of both the user manual and the notes on the developers web pages and still have no idea on either when to use which of the three processors, beyond the trivial. I can get no feeling of what happens when I use them and how, beyond a varying decrease in file size I most especial remain in the dark about what limitations are imposed on the compressed PDF products a result of processing a file with PDFshrink. Therefore, I get even more bewilder on when one might consider creating custom predecessors a significant feature of this software. The product’s manual desperately needs a guide to processors; what they do to your original PDF that limits its capability.
For example, although I converted an initial PDF to eBook, print, and screen formats, I could not tell any difference when either viewing them on screen or when printing a page or two using my HP color LaserJet 3500 printer. So in one word… Help!
Conclusions
This review, as noted preciously is just an over-the-top look at what appears to be a fine product. I also noted that I am not a heavy user of high-end graphics programs such as Adobe Distiller, InDesign, or Illustrator, there for could only work with Power Point files and PDFs downloaded or printed to PDF from the Internet. From what I was able to checkout, the program works extremely well. From my tests, in agreement with Jim Felici’s findings, it works well on files filled with high-resolution images or repetitive elements (such as a PowerPoint presentation with a logo on every slide). If you rely on OS X's tools to create PDF files, PDFshrink can make a huge difference in the sizes of such notoriously bloated files.
I recommend you download this product and try it out for the 10 days. If you create and use the kind of files in excels in shrinking, by all means add it to year collection. I rate this product 4.0 macCs
