Why are PDFs created with Notes scanning so huge?

TidBITS Talk
1

I like the current feature to scan inside Notes to create PDFs - even multipage ones. But if I open up the PDF and save it as a file it’s so huge! Like 9 MB for a page. If I want to send it to someone by mail I need to use something like the shortpdf site to compress it down for a few hundred KB.

Is there any standard way of doing this? Like within Notes itself?

2

A similar thing happens if I save a Safari webpage to a PDF (i.e. Books) on my iPhone or iPad. With my Mac I sometimes use an app called PDFShrink to reduce the file size. It has several options such as saving the PDF for printing, web downloads or email attachments. I guess there are similar apps for iOS.

2 Likes
3

Mr. Lerner, I don’t use Notes myself so can’t provide a Notes solution, but if you’re talking about doing this on your Mac, you could try Preview app.
There are several paths to your goal of emailing smaller pdfs.
For instance, Preview in Sequoia (and possibly earlier as well) can: scan documents (File > Import…); in File > Export… or File > Print, one can use Quartz Filter > Reduce File Size; and File > Share options include Mail and Notes.
The resulting quality of the file may or may not meet output/end use needs but at least that is an option.
If you’re talking iPhone/Pad, I haven’t opened Notes there in so long I don’t know if there is way to reduce the file size there. I just opened Files on iPhone, tapped and held a pdf and low on the popover window is “Quick Actions” which includes “Optimise File Size”. Not sure what happens then, if a duplicate is created or original pdf is undoably changed, but then one could send the result out most likely to Mail and Notes.
Then I thought, all these are multiple steps so maybe Shortcuts can put these steps together, but I didn’t try it yet; maybe there is already a Shortcut for ‘reduce pdf size and attach to new email/note’!
Anyway hope that helps.

2 Likes
4

I was scanning in Notes on my iPhone and then trying to save the file to later send to someone on my Mac running Sequoia. I tried the Quartz Filter > Reduce File Size just now and it worked well. Thanks!