Reducing file size for email? Please help!

[PinCushionQueen]

Hey guys, I posted yesterday about having trouble with the production of my CV on photoshop elements 9.0 and thankfully with the help of some gurus on here yesterday it got sorted, but unfortunately today I have another problem concerning the same CV.

My CV is finished, spent ages on it, delighted with it, saved as a pdf. document, tried it on acrobat, very happy, went to email it to my friend for proof reading and boom it wont send due to the MASSIVE file size. Now I a couple of the places I'm applying kind of have to be through email so I can't just print it off and send it via post so what I'm hoping is that one of you lovely magnificent people knows some magical way of reducing the file size so it can be easily sent and won't clog up peoples inboxes and will hopefully not lose too much of the document quality?

I'm stumped, so any tips or thoughts are gladly welcomed and I really appreciate any advice you can give. Thanks all for your time!

 

[admin]

Does it need to be a PDF?

 

[PinCushionQueen]

Preferably, I'd like it to be easily accessible and viewed, I tried saving it for web but although this does reduce the file size it doesn't really work as hoped as a document unless I'm missing something? A pdf. is probably best but I'm open to any alternative thoughts to be honest?

 

[admin]

Ok, what does this file consist of?

Is this something you made entirely in Photoshop, so that when you make the PDF it is just one big image on the page(s)?

Do you have the pro version of Acrobat? If not, one thing you can try is printing to a PDF file from Adobe Reader. Sounds odd but sometimes this works quite well and can significantly reduce the size of your PDF file. Open the large PDF in Adobe reader, go to File --> Print, choose Adobe PDF from the drop down list of printers. This will allow you to "print" to another PDF file.

If you have Acrobat, try running PDF Optimizer.

 

[PinCushionQueen]

I don't have the pro version, no, just read I think; Adobe Reader 9. I tried the print idea, idk if I've done something wrong. Went to file, print but there isn't a option in the printer drop down that says Adobe pdf. just an option for my epson, fax and microsoft xps document writer? It did have a box I ticked at the bottom that merely said "print to file" so I did, told it to print, I was asked what to save it as, and then afterwards I cancelled the print as my printer is out of ink etc. I went to open the new file but it can't be opened from what I can tell, no idea why? :/

 

[iDad]

save it as pdf without editing capabilities should reduce it significantly also

 

[Steve]

Email is the problem, there are attachment limits.
If you cant make the file small enough to email there are sites that let you upload your file and have others download it.
I'm sure, some are better than others, but since I never used a site like this I have no opinion and obviously I'm not endorsing any.

With that disclaimer here's a Goggle Search that may help you.

 

[admin]

Another option is to use a gmail account and upload the file to Google Docs. Then you can email a link to the online Google Docs version to whoever you need to send this to.

 

[PinCushionQueen]

Hey guys thanks for all your help I finally worked out a way to do it, got it down from 36MB to 1.4MB but lost some of the quality but now have it with perfect quality at about 4MB and it emails fine and is still a pdf. Absolutely sick of the sight of my laptop now of course but I know what to do for the future. Thanks for all your help though guys! Appreciate it x.

 

[admin]

Glad you got it. What method did you use?

 

[Carson]

I didn't quite read the whole thing, but if your trying to reduce the size you can compress it can't you? There are quite a few compression tools out there, but it would be a lot easier depending on the size of the file to just convert it to a .zip.

 

[PinCushionQueen]

It seemed like such a faff at first but I've done it for a few different files now and it's suprisingly easy. I opened the original photoshop .pse version of the doc in Photoshop Elements 9.0, went to "Save for Web..." for each page and saved each of the as separate .gif docs, which drastically cut the file size and then cut the size of the image by 50% (it was still massive so that quality was all there when it's normal size in acrobat) and then just opened 'page one' in Photoshop Elements as a new thing and added two blank pages which I copied and pasted the other two pages to It sounds probably more complicated than it ended up being, but now I've done it once it's easy peasy

Thanks for all your time and help though! This is a great forum!

 

[PinCushionQueen]

I didn't quite read the whole thing, but if your trying to reduce the size you can compress it can't you? There are quite a few compression tools out there, but it would be a lot easier depending on the size of the file to just convert it to a .zip.

Hey Carson, I worked out a easy way to do it in the end so all is fine now but thanks for your post. I did try zipping it, as my friend said it had worked for her before but surprisingly it didn't cut the size down much at all, but as I say, the file was massive, 36MB, so it had to be drastically reduced, but got there in the end. I've posted how I finally managed to do it if you can understand my ramblings, I'm not very technical I'm afraid

 

[Carson]

Hey Carson, I worked out a easy way to do it in the end so all is fine now but thanks for your post. I did try zipping it, as my friend said it had worked for her before but surprisingly it didn't cut the size down much at all, but as I say, the file was massive, 36MB, so it had to be drastically reduced, but got there in the end. I've posted how I finally managed to do it if you can understand my ramblings, I'm not very technical I'm afraid

I'm glad you found a solution