I recently scanned my passport as a PDF, but it's way too large at 15MB. I need to send it to my accountant in a single file that's under 3MB. I've tried some online compressors, but they make the text unreadable. Does anyone have suggestions for compressing this PDF without losing quality?
4 Answers
Don't forget to enable compression options on your scanner! Many scanners have a feature to create compressed PDFs, which can save you a lot of hassle. If you have Adobe PDF editor, it can compress your files with just a click.
Have you thought about whether it absolutely needs to be a PDF? If you scan the passport as a JPG or PNG, you can usually reduce the file size significantly while maintaining the quality.
One method is to scan at a lower resolution. You could also scan each page as a separate image, lower the resolution with a graphics program, and then compile them into a Word document. Finally, save that document as a PDF.
If you're looking for a quick solution, try printing your PDF using a PDF creator printer and set the resolution lower, like 1200 DPI. If you need software, PDF SAM can split and merge PDFs efficiently.
That's a great idea! Also, keeping the scan in grayscale and dropping the DPI to around 300 can help reduce the size further.