shrinkpdf

Inspired by this gist.

Use this script to resize/reduce/shrink large pdfs. Feel free to share.

Installation

Requires:

• python3. Install from python.org
• ghostscript

Mac OS & Linux

• On Mac, install ghostscript using: brew install ghostscript. On Linux, use sudo apt install ghostscript (tested on Ubuntu 18.04)
• Clone this repo or download shrink.py to your PC.
• Run sudo chmod +x shrink.py from terminal to make the file executable.
• Test install. Run ./shrink.py -h to view help.

Windows

• Install ghostscript from https://www.ghostscript.com/
• Clone the repo or download shrink.py to your PC.
• Use python shrink.py -h to test install.

Usage

$ ./shrink.py [-h] [-i IN_FILE] [-v VERBOSE] [-q QUALITY]

optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-i, --in_file         Path to input PDF file. Eg. input.pdf
-q, --quality         Compression quality: screen, ebook, printer, prepress, default. 
-v, --verbose         Output updates while program is running, default True.

The compression level goes from screen as the strongest yielding smaller output files, to default as the weakest yielding higher output files.

Example

$ ./shrink.py -i test.pdf
File checks done...
Shrinking file test.pdf...
Compression quality: default...
Done. PDF reduced by 38.18%, Output size: 7.01 MB.
Resized file written to: /home/daniel/Documents/shrinkpdf/test_resized.pdf.

On Windows, use:

> python shrink.py -i test.pdf