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Inspiring
December 4, 2024
Question

Acrobat Pro Compression Fails for PDFs Exported from Keynote

  • December 4, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 843 views

Hi everyone,

I’m experiencing an issue with Adobe Acrobat Pro’s “Compress a PDF” tool. When I try to compress PDFs exported from Apple Keynote, I get a conversion warning with the error:
“An error was encountered while processing images.”

What’s Odd:

  1. PDFs exported from older Keynote files that worked fine before no longer compress successfully in Acrobat Pro.
  2. I’m wondering if this could be an issue with Acrobat Pro, possibly related to recent updates or compatibility changes.
  3. If I export the Keynote file as a PPTX and then use PowerPoint to create the PDF, the compression works fine in Acrobat Pro.

What I’ve Tried:

  • Re-exporting from Keynote with different quality settings.
  • Testing older files that previously compressed fine.
  • Using both Compress a PDF and Save as Other > Reduced Size PDF options in Acrobat Pro.

Current Setup:

  • MacOS: Sequoia 15.1.1
  • Adobe Acrobat Pro: Build 24.4.20272.0
  • Keynote: Version 14.2 (7041.0.109)

My Questions:

  1. Has anyone encountered similar issues with Acrobat Pro and PDFs from Keynote?
  2. Could this be related to Acrobat Pro updates or compatibility with macOS Sequoia?
  3. Are there any settings or troubleshooting steps I should try to resolve this?

 

Thanks so much for any insights or suggestions!

PHLSKT

3 replies

Participant
January 17, 2025

I am currently running into this exact issue. I'm assuming it's the latest OS update too.

PHLSKTAuthor
Inspiring
December 9, 2024

All software is up to date, and I’ve tried various settings and methods to troubleshoot this issue. Here’s what I found:

 

  1. Export to PDF and Print/Save as PDF directly from Keynote both create PDFs that cause issues with Acrobat Pro’s compression tool.
  2. However, Acrobat successfully compressed a PDF after I exported it from Keynote, opened it in Preview, and applied the Quartz Filter “Reduce File Size.”

 

The trick is adding this intermediate step, using Preview to reprocess the PDF before attempting compression in Acrobat.

This is only a workaround, though. I hope Adobe or Apple addresses this issue soon to make the workflow seamless again.

Participant
August 10, 2025

I had no idea you could do this--opening in Preview and exporting with the filter. It solved what has been an ongoing frustration for me for months, over several rounds of Keynote/Mac OS/Adobe updates. Thank you!

JR Boulay
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 4, 2024

2. Obviously.

I always wait at least 6 months before updating MacOS!

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
PHLSKTAuthor
Inspiring
December 9, 2024

That's a smart rule!