ORPALIS PDF Reducer cuts document sizes by up to 80 percent

ORPALIS PDF Reducer is an effective tool for optimizing PDF documents, reducing their size by up to 80 percent.

Unlike some of the competition, the program doesn’t just cut your document DPI: it applies multiple techniques to deliver the best results. This starts by checking individual PDF objects. Any which aren’t used are stripped out of the file, and you can optionally remove other items you may not need: annotations, bookmarks, embedded files and more.

If the file contains scanned documents, they’ll all be encoded as full color images. PDF Reducer detects any which are just black and white, then re-encodes them as plain black and white images, often with dramatic savings.

The program applies multiple compression techniques on some images, reducing file size without losing any quality.

If this isn’t enough, you can opt to resample images to a lower DPI.

ORPALIS also claims that the program analyses layout, finds similar bitmaps and uses that information to optimize compression, but we’re not sure how that works or what it can achieve.

All this is extremely easy to set up. At a minimum the program just needs an input and output folder, and you can adjust how it works in a simple Settings dialog (turn off downscaling, maybe, or choose which content to remove).

It also performed well in our tests. As usual, some files barely changed at all, but the program did make its advertised 80 percent reduction in other cases -- more, sometimes -- and without having much effect on quality.

There is one catch. ORPALIS PDF Reducer’s full Professional version is priced at $199, and while there’s a free-for-personal-use build available, it has a nag screen which pops up on launch, and after every five batch-processed files.

The nag screen has a countdown of several seconds (up to 12 in our tests), and can’t be dismissed until then. If you’re hoping to process hundreds of files then you’ll have to sit in front of the PC, wait for the countdown, dismiss the nag screen, then do it again a few seconds later.

While this can be annoying, at least you’re getting the same compression level as the full product, with no watermarks, resolution limits or other hassles. That seems generous to us, and if you’re going to process vast numbers of files then the developer probably deserves some payment.

ORPALIS PDF Reducer is a free-for-personal-use application for Windows XP and later.