Quick reference
Is your PDF too heavy? It is the pictures inside, not the text
A PDF stores a page exactly as it was printed: fonts, layout and every image placed on it. Text costs almost nothing; a scan or a screenshot costs as much as it likes.
- What is inside
- pages, fonts and embedded images
- Where weight comes from
- scans, photos, screenshots
- Text accounts for
- a fraction of a percent
Where the size comes from
Pictures carry the weight, text does not
We took 53 real PDFs apart byte by byte: images accounted for 44 to 99 percent of every report and scan.
That is why the same page count can produce either 200 kilobytes or 30 megabytes. The difference is not how many words there are, but whether the file carries raster images and at what resolution.
Three methods run, the smallest result wins
One algorithm is not enough because documents differ too much.
PDFTIFF
What to do with a PDF
Keep the default quality: for scans and reports that is usually half the weight with no visible difference on screen.
Compress PDF