Whether sending files through emails, uploading documents, or saving space on your devices, reducing the file size without sacrificing the file’s quality is a common concern. PDFs are arguably among the most popular file formats for sharing documents, and they are even more preferred for their small file sizes.
PDFs keep your pages' designs, formatting styles, and layouts, yet they take up less space than other formats like image or Word files. You might not notice it as you use PDFs, but you are surely wondering why a PDF takes less space. Read through the succeeding sections to discover the vital elements that make PDFs the best option if you want to send smaller file sizes.
How Does the PDF Format Work?
PDF’s main objective was to provide a file format that can preserve the formatting and layout of the original document, regardless of the device and platform used to view it. Unlike word processors, a PDF can save the layout of documents, including fonts, images, texts, and other elements. Furthermore, it has printing settings to ensure documents are identical, whether printed or viewed on screens.
What Affects the Size of PDFs?
It is good that PDFs take up less space. However, it is also vital for users to know what makes their PDF documents smaller or larger. The following are some of the common reasons.
- High-resolution image files. More detailed and clearer images on PDFs will result in a relatively larger file size.
- Embedded fonts. There are PDFs that pack the complete font family, including the font styles and sizes. The more fonts, the larger the size of the document.
- PDF creation tool and software. The software you use significantly matters. Some compress everything tightly, making the PDF file smaller. Some PDF creation providers do the opposite, making PDFs bigger.
Why Does a PDF Take Less Space?
Most people still wonder why PDFs are relatively smaller in size than images and word processing files. Look closely at the points below.
1. Compression Algorithms
One reason PDFs take up less space is their efficiency in compressing files. Essentially, a PDF can be compressed using two kinds of algorithms. Lossless compression reduces the PDF size without losing quality. Meanwhile, lossy compression reduces the file size by removing some data, usually those related to multimedia and image content.
2. Images vs text-based documents
Essays, reports, and presentations take up less space when saved as PDFs rather than in Word or PowerPoint file formats. Since the texts are stored in a compressed format, the file size generally reduces. Furthermore, while PDFs may contain various elements like fonts and images, this format is optimized to retain only the essential aspects.
3. Vector graphics for image and text elements
A PDF utilizes vector graphics, which can significantly save space. This type of graphic is made using geometric shapes and mathematical equations, such as polygons, curves, and lines. It can be A key benefit of PDFs is their use of vector graphics, which can greatly reduce file size. Unlike raster graphics, which store image data as pixels, vector graphics are created using geometric shapes and mathematical equations, such as polygons, curves, and lines. This allows them to be resized without losing quality, making them ideal for scalable text and image elements. Since vector-based graphics require significantly less storage space compared to raster-based images, PDFs can compress the overall file size without sacrificing visual clarity. By using vector graphics for both images and text, PDFs offer an efficient and high-quality way to manage graphical content.
4. Use of several fonts and embedded resources
As you know, a PDF embeds fonts straight into the file, ensuring that documents appear the same across all devices, even if the specific fonts used are not installed on the viewing platform or device. To put this into context, only those used characters are embedded if a particular document uses a few characters from a certain font. As a result, it saves space compared to embedding the whole font family.
5. Management of attachments and other multimedia content
One of the greatest advantages of PDFs is the ability to include multimedia content such as interactive elements, videos, and audio clips. These types of content tend to be large in file size, but PDFs help manage this by compressing the overall document. Video and audio files, for instance, are often compressed using formats like H.264 for video and MP3 for audio. This compression significantly reduces the file size while maintaining the quality of the multimedia content. By using PDFs, you can efficiently manage and share large multimedia files without compromising the user experience or performance.
What Can I Do to Reduce the File Size of PDFs Further?
If you think the PDF you made still has a larger file size, you might want to save it as a ‘Reduced Sized PDF.’ This feature is available when opening Adobe Acrobat or other PDF software tools. As you do so, ensure to keep the file document and layout settings.
Another way would be to use a PDF compressor tool. Even if you don’t have Adobe to manage PDFs, there are several free online compression software programs that can reduce the file size of your document so it takes less space. Remember that as your files undergo this process, some quality loss might be experienced. I do recommend you to read our article about compressing PDF file if you are in need: What are the Best ways to Compress or Reduce a large PDF File?
FAQs
Q: Can a PDF file be too small?
A: Yes. If your PDF is extremely small in terms of file size, it means some significant data, like embedded fonts and images, have been removed or overly compressed. If this happens, the PDF file might lose vital elements like fonts, formatting, and pictures during compression.
Q: Is it possible to reduce the PDF size after it is created?
A: Yes. You only have to use PDF compressors to optimize and compress PDFs efficiently. They usually reduce image resolutions, remove unnecessary elements, and apply compression to several parts of the PDF document.
Q: How do I check the PDF size?
A: You can check the file properties of your PDF to see the exact size of the document. On most PCs and laptops, right-click on the file and select ‘Properties’ for Windows and ‘Get Info’ for Mac. Some PDF readers also show the file size in the metadata section.
Q: How does a PDF file compare in terms of size to PNG or JPEG image files?
A: A PDF is more space-efficient than individual photos in JPEG or PNG formats. In most cases, images store pixel data and may increase in file size if the resolution is higher. Meanwhile, PDFs utilize vector graphics for simple shapes and texts, which take up less space.
Conclusion
Overall, a PDF file takes less space thanks to its efficient utilization of vector graphics, compression algorithms, and a fully optimized document structure. Whether you deal with images, texts, or multimedia content, PDFs can effectively store content compactly, making it ideal for sharing documents across several platforms.
Along with enjoying PDF documents with smaller file sizes is the right selection of software where you can produce PDFs. Explore the various functionalities and features of PDF Agile to ensure space-efficient files and quality documents.
