- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT
- Date added: August 13, 2005
- Total Downloads: 40,735
- Downloads last week: 736
- See full specifications
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 23 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
Despite being a bit of a resource hog itself, this application seriously reduces the size of your PDF files. Free PDF Compressor offers a straightforward interface with only a few standard buttons for selecting, compressing, and decompressing PDF files. The program lets you choose from two compression algorithms and four compression levels. Though we found the RunLength much faster than the Flate algorithm, Free PDF Compressor did indeed noticeably shrink PDF files in testing using either option, with no change in the quality of the compressed PDF files. However, the program uses 40MB to 50MB of memory and significantly slowed down our system during the compression process. This single-purpose application is an easy-to-use, freeware option for shrinking PDF files, but it may cost you some speed when it's at work.Publisher's description
From NicePDF Software :Free PDF Compressor removes duplicate PDF objects, optionally takes advantage of new compression features of latest PDF specifications that for many classes of documents compresses 30 - 60% better than what is possible in PDF 1.5. Free PDF Compressor allows you to shrink PDF file by using Flate or RunLength compression algorithm. With this freeware, you are able to set the compression level to generate PDF files of smallest size.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.1 stars out of 23 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 23 user reviewsSee all 23 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Free PDF Compressor 1.12
Pros: small download.
Cons: It increased my files size instead of compressing. A 2 pages pdf with gray scale images in letter size was increased from 290kb to 293kb, and a plain text based document with 19 pages was increased from 93kb to 393kb, yes 393kb. didn'd work for me.
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Free PDF Compressor 1.12
Pros: It compressed a 10Mb file down to 2.7mb in a matter of seconds. (I don't really know what the other reviews are all about.)
Simple to use and good results.
Cons: None
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Free PDF Compressor 1.12
Pros: For what I needed it for - this was PERFECT! I dob't know whats up with the other's reviews, but for what I needed to get done, this worked great!
I tried a few others, but I wasnt pleased with the format. I like this one much better.
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Free PDF Compressor 1.12
Pros: I didn't really like anything about this program
Cons: It shrunk my pdf file from 9.13 mb to 9.11 mb Pointless
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Free PDF Compressor 1.12
Pros: Note: this is a review of the freeware program PDFCompressor 1.12 created by NicePDF. It is not a review of the $350 program named PDFCompressor 2.0 by CVision.
PDFCompressor did indeed shrink my 642MB file down to a size of 585MB, for a savings of about 9%. It may produce different results on a different kind of file; this particular file consisted of about 90 image-scanned sheets. To achieve its compression, it worked very slowly, processing an estimated 80-90MB per hour, or about 1.5MB/minute. I say "estimated" because I had to let it work overnight, and I noticed its progress when I got up once during the night. I *had* to let it work overnight because it almost completely took over my 2.4GHz Pentium 4 machine: my other programs worked slowly while PDFCompressor was working, and while it was running, I experienced significant delays when I tried to switch between programs.
Cons: When it was done, it did indeed produce, as I say, a shrunk file, and it was a shrunk file that Adobe Acrobat 6.0 was able to read. But when I edited and then saved that file, it took about an hour to save. (Saving did not increase the file size; it stayed at 585MB.) I am reluctant to do any more work on that file and save it again, however, for fear that it will again take a long time to save. I haven't noticed any deterioration of quality in the saved file - though, as I say, it is just sheets of plain text that have been image-scanned. I just don't want to find, later, that there are problems I didn't anticipate. This PDF is an important one, so I'll just stick with non-compressed Acrobat PDF output.
I want to mention, incidentally, that I had some really funky system problems about the time I was using this program. I don't *think* they came from this program. I mention them only because they were unusual, as was the way in which my computer changed to a slug when I was running this program.
I give the program 3 stars because it did compress the PDF by a relatively small percentage, which is what it was advertised to do, but it did so in such a way as to cause significant delays and leave me with a nervous feeling, such that I ultimately decided not to use it. But I want to emphasize that it did work, and there may yet be a time when I decide that I need it after all.
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