Skip to main content
Participant
July 24, 2025
Question

What settings are used by Acrobat's online PDF compression tool?

  • July 24, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 351 views

Hello! 

We publish PDFs (initially converted from either PowerPoint or Word) which have few font variations, but many images, hyperlinks, and bookmarks. Pre-compression, the space usage audit shows about 25% goes to images, 33% to content streams, and 33% to structure info. When we use our desktop Acrobat to compress (either with Optimizer or Reduce File Size), regardless of how we tinker with settings used, we can never compress the files nearly as much as when we simply use the free Acrobat online PDF compressor with "max compression" settings. Discarding bookmarks, hyperlinks, and images are not an option.

Is there any way to duplicate the level of PDF compression achieved with the online compressor on our desktop Acrobat? Does anyone know what settings are used by the online compressor? 

For security reasons, we'd prefer to do the compression on our machines rather than rely on the online compression tool.

Many Thanks!

2 replies

Meenakshi Negi
Community Manager
Community Manager
July 24, 2025

Hi jlilla,

 

You may try the following steps and see if that helps:

- Open the PDF in Acrobat.

- Go to Menu > File > Save as other > Optimized PDF. 

You may also refer to the information in the following help document to try different settings to see if you can get the required results: https://adobe.ly/4meygFn.  

 

Let us know if that helps.

 

Thanks,

Meenakshi

jlillaAuthor
Participant
August 25, 2025

Hi Meenakshi:

Optimized PDF via Acrobat does not compress our PDFs as well as the Acrobat online compressor. 

I did go to the help document and tried a variety of settings changes, but still was unable to compress the file as effectively as the Acrobat online compressor without losing bookmarks and major image quality loss. So if the exact settings used by the Acrobat online compressor could be shared, it would be extremely helpful.

Thank you!

Meenakshi Negi
Community Manager
Community Manager
July 24, 2025

Hi jlilla,

 

Thank you for reaching out.

 

As mentioned, the compression on the desktop application does not work as it does on the Acrobat web. Could you please share a video showing what happens when you compress the file on the web and desktop? Also, would it be possible to share a sample PDF so we can replicate the behavior on our end and investigate further? 

Please share the Acrobat and OS version currently in use.

 

Feel free to let us know if you have any questions or need help.

 

Thanks,

Meenakshi