Cheap storage does not mean you shouldn’t compress your PDFs

When you scan or create documents using your PDF software, you create files that are ideal for digital storage because they:

• Don’t require proprietary software to read them
• Save space
• Are easy to search and find
• Won’t get lost (if you’re backed up properly by using cloud storage such as Foxit Cloud)

But, you may say to yourself, I can get a terabyte of storage for less than a nice dinner for two! Why should I compress my files?

Good question. Here are three reasons:

• Many of us use laptops. That extra TB of storage is usually a USB hard drive. Toting that around with potential for loss, theft, and damage is not a very sound strategy.
• Documents are obese. What with very high resolution images, fonts, and complex diagrams, “large files” used to mean megabytes, but now can approach hundreds of MB.
• File transfer speeds are never as fast as we want them to be.

That’s where compression comes in.

What is PDF compression and why use it?

There are many ways to optimize a document using your PDF software, however, compression allows you to reduce the file size to a fraction of the original without affecting document quality. This reduces the amount of storage space you need, lowers costs, and makes file transfer via FTP, email, Box, Dropbox, etc. easier.

Working with PDF/A standardization

Using the right tool to compress PDF documents is essential, especially if you need to store documents according to ISO standards. Also known as PDF/A, this standard includes requirements for color management, support for embedded fonts, and a user interface for reading embedded annotations.

Who uses PDF compression?

• Manufacturing companies that create large document file sizes with illustrations and schematics.
• Government and legal industries that need to search a large number of documents and may continue to need to do so far into the future.
• Utilities companies that store massive amounts of customer information along with plant diagrams and blueprints.
• Anyone frustrated with file transfer times.

How do you compress PDF files?

For industrial-grade compression, LuraTech (a Foxit company) offers their LuraTech PDF Compressor Enterprise for creating high-quality, highly compressed, easily searchable PDF documents, especially for scanned documents.

Working with PDF and PDF/A documents, LuraTech’s compression solution helps companies process anything from a single PDF document to thousands of PDF files. Customers include General Electric, Exelon, Lockheed Martin, The Library of Congress, US Department of Defense, and LexisNexis.

For individuals who sometimes deal with large files, LuraTech offers a desktop version of the LuraTech PDF Compressor. It’s got an easy-to-use graphical interface and integrated OCR to make files fully text searchable.

Contact LuraTech to request a demo version of LuraTech PDF Compressor to see just how much your business can benefit from PDF compression.