Comments on: Ubuntu Tip:Howto reduce PDF file size from command line

By: ThorX89

ThorX89 — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:36:47 +0000

I don’t feel like resizing images inside my pdf files, however, I have just found another interesting way to significantly reduce the size of my pdf files.
Simply by compressing them.
*.pdf.gz files need not be decompressed if you want to open them in evince or okular.
If, like me, you’ve got quite a lot of pdf files, this can save you a few GIGs of space (! you won’t be able to open the *.pdf.gz files in acroread and probably not on Windows either !)
USE ON YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY:
1)INSTALL pigz
$ sudo apt-get install pigz
(pigz is exactly like gzip, but it can work in multiple threads and thus utilize your multicore processor)
2)COMPRESS ALL PDFs IN YOUR $HOME
$ find “$HOME” -name ‘*.pdf’ -print0 | xargs -0 -n32 pigz -v

By: Pritesh

Pritesh — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:58:50 +0000

Thanks guys the command is awesome. Thanks a lot for you help.

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:38:54 +0000

Hi yifangt,

I’m also a bit of a learner with bash scripts.

Maybe you need to do have something like
alias smallpdf=’/usr/bin/smallpdf.bash’;
or similar.

I just created a folder called ‘Programs’ in my home folder (rather than calling it ‘bin’), and stored the script there, then my bashrc line is:
alias smallpdf=’~/Programs/smallpdf’;

I’m sure you’ll get it right if you play around a bit with the locations/filenames, and permissions. Good luck!

By: yifangt

yifangt — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:18:59 +0000

Thanks Tony!

This is what I was looking for and/as I am learning BASH!

I did as your post, but when I issue:

$ smallpdf my_pdf_file.pdf

There was an error message:

“smallpdf: command not found!

The “smallpdf.bash” was made executable and put in my /usr/bin as I do not have a /home/user/bin/ folder in my Ubuntu 11.04.
Also I put the alias line in my ~/.bashrc.

Each time I have to type:

$ smallpdf.bash my_input_file.pdf

It seems I am getting close, but not sure the place I missed. Thank you!

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 26 May 2011 08:42:59 +0000

In case anyone finds it useful; here is a very simple bash script that uses the above command to reduce the PDF size, while making a backup of the original, and printing the filesizes (old and new)
---------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
#set -x
File=”"
File=”$1″
OriginalFile=${File/%\.pdf/-lrg.pdf}
mv $File $OriginalFile
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/default -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=$File $OriginalFile
du -sh $OriginalFile
du -sh $File
---------------------------------------------

You might call it smallpdf, place it in /home/user/bin, make executable, and add the following line to your ~/.bashrc
alias smallpdf=’~/bin/smallpdf’;

then in any folder do
~$ smallpdf input.pdf

I’m sure the script could be improved/enhanced (e.g. optionally specify ebook/printer/press)

By: Nico

Nico — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:51:17 +0000

It gives me this error:

Error: /rangecheck in --run--
Operand stack:
--dict:12/21(L)-- --dict:0/0(L)-- 686.787 1.9519 1310.25 789.078
Execution stack:
%interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1878 1 3 %oparray_pop 1877 1 3 %oparray_pop 1861 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 1 330 --nostringval-- %for_pos_int_continue --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push --nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
--dict:1157/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:1/20(G)-- --dict:75/200(L)-- --dict:75/200(L)-- --dict:108/127(ro)(G)-- --dict:288/300(ro)(G)-- --dict:23/25(L)-- --dict:6/8(L)-- --dict:22/40(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: 2
GPL Ghostscript 8.71: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1
GPL Ghostscript 8.71: ERROR: A pdfmark destination page 330 points beyond the last page 1.

By: ShellyCat

ShellyCat — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 05:34:18 +0000

Awesome tip! A lifesaver!

For me, using -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen worked great! I tried scanning my *10-page* document at several resolutions, and the smaller ones printed blurry documents, while the next available DPI made the final (combined) PDF too huge to post to a group service. I’ve spent hours trying to shrink this in Xpdf and other programs (even with the CLI-program “convert”), with no success getting it small enough.

However, this GhostScript trick made the document *much* smaller without loss of quality, and it was the *simplest* thing I’ve done all night! (Bear in mind, there are no photos in this document. Still, it brought the file from over 5 MB to only 659 kb!

Thanks tons and tons!

By: zweifel

zweifel — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:12:38 +0000

You can also use the following options for better adjustment:

-dPDFSETTINGS=/screen (screen-view-only quality, 72 dpi images)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook (low quality, 150 dpi images)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/printer (high quality, 300 dpi images)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress (high quality, color preserving, 300 dpi imgs)
-dPDFSETTINGS=/default (almost identical to /screen)

More options and fine tunning on the site: http://milan.kupcevic.net/ghostscript-ps-pdf/

By: eremin

eremin — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 14:02:48 +0000

Thank you very very much! Exactly what I wanted!

By: Travis Poppe

Travis Poppe — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:14:18 +0000

I had to use -dUseCIEColor to maintain the correct colors in the conversion process (by default, all of the shades turn out weird).

If you’d like to fine-tune the compression settings beyond what the presets offer (-dPDFSETTINGS)=/preset), you can manipulate the parameters directly; a list of them can be found here: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/cvs/Ps2pdf.htm

I needed a target file size beyond what even /screen could produce, so I set the resolution to 38 (images really start to degrade at this point):

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dColorImageResolution=38 -dColorImageDownsampleType=/Average -dGrayImageDownsampleType=/Average -dGrayImageResolution=38 -dMonoImageResolution=38 -dMonoImageDownsampleType=/Average -dOptimize=true -dDownsampleColorImages=true -dDownsampleGrayImages=true -dDownsampleMonoImages=true -dUseCIEColor -dColorConversionStrategy=/sRGB -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf

Optimal results may require some experimenting.

By: jerico

jerico — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:23:16 +0000

Hi:

Is there a way to use this command for multiple pdf files?

Thanks!

By: Sneza

Sneza — Sun, 02 May 2010 10:36:44 +0000

Hi,

I have a scanned pdf 2 pages, 380.8 kb and it got reduced to 292.7 kb. I need it to be bellow 100 kb. Any suggestions? It is scanned text, so it should still be readable…

Thanks in advance!

By: Swaprava

Swaprava — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:46:17 +0000

Simply superb, that’s why I love command line so much

By: Kerneels

Kerneels — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:07:32 +0000

Thanx this really helped. Reduced my PDF from 32MB down to 2MB without any visible difference in quality. Ideal for uploading.

By: Seemanta

Seemanta — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:09:06 +0000

Thanks!!! This was *exactly* what I was looking for! You made my day!!

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:45:30 +0000

This tends to munch special characters and embedded PDF images.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:12:42 +0000

Hi there, Many thanks for the tip.

I tried reducing a PDF file of a scanned document of 2.5Mb, but the result was unreadable. (filesize 67Kb)

I found that by leaving out -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen, I got a very acceptable filesize of 250K
- readable
- small enough to send by email

Summary: leave out: -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen for better quality.

By: James

James — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:07:48 +0000

Unless this applies only to PDF files created by Adobe Acrobat (i.e. because they’re more bloated to begin with or something) I would suggest that your title should speak of “PDF file size” rather than “Adobe Acrobat file size”. Since 2008, PDF is an ISO standard and PDF viewing and creation may have nothing to do with Adobe software.

By: claudio

claudio — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:05:23 +0000

“-dPDFSETTINGS=/screen” suggest that the file is optimized for screen instead of printing. If this is the case you should point out to the readers that they are making files smaller, but removing quality needed for printing.

By: g3n1uss

g3n1uss — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:08:31 +0000

My output file (66.5 KB) is bigger then input one (61.9 KB).