Reduce PDF file size
tinypdf is am experimental utility that acts as a wrapper (or orchestrator) around multiple PDF manipulation tools, using okayish configurations to reduce PDF file size.
- I wasn't really comfortable uploading sensitive files on web-server based PDF compression tools. Existing GUI based tools resulted in unsatisfactory results (I was greedy, since I wanted to reduce a file from 19MB to less than 1.5MB).
- I seem to have a weird liking for doing this kind of stuff.
Build the image.
make docker
Run a container
# TODO Publish Image: docker pull bhupeshimself/tinypdf
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app bhupeshimself/tinypdf:latestIf everything goes good, you should see a welcome text like this
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Usage:
tinypdf -i input.pdf [-preset screen|ebook|printer|prepress] [-quality 50]
Example:
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app bhupeshimself/tinypdf -i input.pdf -preset printer -quality 40
Options:
-preset One of: screen, ebook, printer, prepress (default: screen)
-quality Quality percentage between 10 and 90 (default: 50)
Bugs:
Please report any issues on the GitHub repository.
https://github.com/Bhupesh-V/tinypdf/issues
Follow the instructions shared on tinypdf --help
Sample run
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app bhupeshimself/tinypdf:latest -i board_certificate.pdf -preset ebook -quality 88
Sample output:
Original: 976 kB
Compressed: 294 kB
Reduced by: 682 kB (69.9%)
To report & debug any issues, use the TINYPDF_DEBUG=1 env variable:
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -e TINYPDF_DEBUG=1 tinypdf:latest -i board_certificate.pdf -preset ebook -quality 88Sample log
2026/02/18 13:49:01 /usr/bin/pdftocairo -pdf board_certificate.pdf /tmp/tinypdf-pdftocairo-2051690074.pdf
2026/02/18 13:49:01 /usr/bin/gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dDownsampleColorImages=true -dColorImageDownsampleType=/Average -dDownsampleMonoImages=true -dMonoImageDownsampleType=/Subsample -dDownsampleGrayImages=true -dGrayImageDownsampleType=/Average -dColorImageResolution=132 -dMonoImageResolution=264 -dGrayImageResolution=132 -sOutputFile=/tmp/tinypdf-gs-3152810261.pdf /tmp/tinypdf-pdftocairo-2051690074.pdf
2026/02/18 13:49:02 /usr/bin/qpdf --object-streams=generate --stream-data=compress /tmp/tinypdf-gs-3152810261.pdf /tmp/tinypdf-qpdf-2016115314.pdf
Original: 976 kB
Compressed: 294 kB
Reduced by: 682 kB (69.9%)
tinypdf would not have been possible without these tools 💙
ocrmypdfon its own does a good job for reducing PDF size. However watch out for unintentional image removals from the file.pdfsizeoptis probably one of the earliest tools to optimize PDF file size.
The PDF asset(s) used to test tinypdf are available on Internet Archive (except my 10th board certificate).