Background

Depending on the pdf creator/engine used, a .pdf file may include content irrelevant for reading by a human. An example is the inclusion of complete sets of fonts though only a few glyphs are (or only one is) used on the "electronic paper". To print the .pdf with ghostscript again into a .pdf may reduce the file size e.g., prior to organize a publication in a reference manager.

By far, this bash script does not claim to be the first one collecting bits and bolts to address the issue. It rather serves as an aide-memoire of finds encountered earlier, and to moderate ghostscript in Linux accordingly. Within reason, the snippets were joined as provided; thus, the credit belongs to those already in the field.

Intended Use

One use consists of 1) the provision of the executable bit (chmod +x pdf_reprint.sh), and 2) to set an alias in your .bashrc file. Then, the functionality described below is available all across your system.

• Else, to reprint the .pdf while retaining the color, run either one of the following commands

  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh --reprint input.pdf
  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh -r input.pdf
  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh --colour input.pdf
  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh --color input.pdf
  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh -c input.pdf

  to replace the original file input.pdf by a new version of smaller file size. There will be a short note if the attempt was successful; and if so, the improvement compared to the original input.pdf is reported (percentage). Though you may process the file multiple times with this method, savings in file size often quickly converge to be insignificant in comparison to the remaining file size.

  The credit for the underlying approach and implementation belongs to Evan Langlois.¹

• Often, an additional reduction of file size may be obtained by reprinting the .pdf in gray-scale only. Either one of the following commands to the script is equivalent

  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh --gray input.pdf
  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh --grey input.pdf
  bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh -g input.pdf

  to replace file input.pdf by its rewritten form. The credit for this approach belongs to user slm on the Unix stackexchange.²

• To process multiple .pdf, a for-loop in your shell could follow the pattern of

  for file in *.pdf
  do
      echo "$file"
      bash ./pdf_rewrite.sh -r "$file"
  done

  This equally provides you a brief progress report, too.

Note, this script's primary aim is to obtain a file of small file size, e.g., as an attachment of an email while retaining the text easy to read and – if present – to retain a text layer searchable. Especially the reprint in half-tones however may render illustrations less intelligible. It is up to the creators of figures to use easy discernible markers in diagrams, as well as to use color scales suitable for the color blind, and safe for this mimicked "photocopying". For the later, a service like https://colorbrewer2.org/ may guide your selection.

Keep a backup of the .pdf to be processed. Though the script may report problems while processing the data (or even crash, which may destroy the .pdf), it is not a PDF validator such as e.g., veraPDF.³

Benchmark

Initially written for Linux Xubuntu 18.04.3 LTS and ghostscript (version 9.26), the script is known working well e.g., with Debian 13/trixie (currently testing) and GPL Ghostscript (version 10.02.1 published by 2023-11-01).

• File link2web.pdf was compiled with pdfLaTeX based on an example provided by www.texample.net. This .pdf contains a color figure and link to an external reference. Note, the simplification into half-tones (option -g) affects the document printed, depending on the pdf viewer used, the box around the link may remain colored for the display on screen.

• The performance of the utility was tested on a couple of recent publications in chemistry. To ease a potential replication, publications used for the bench marke are – within reason – available open access/CC.

In the table below, savings computes the difference of the file size prior and after the processing with either option, then reports this change as percentage in respect to the file size of the originally submitted file after a single run of optimization.

Typically, the simple reprint -r retaining the color is the fastest approach to reduce most of the file size in one run and hence already good enough. How much file size is saved seems to vary not only by the relatice amount of special (mathematical) characters, but among journals by the same publisher; see for instance the small savings for a reprint for J. Appl. Cryst. vs. Helv. Chim. Acta both published by Wiley.

source	publisher	original	reprint -r	saved %	reprint -g	saved %
2023ACR3640	ACS	7.0 MB	4.5 MB	35.7	3.2 MB	54.3
2023ACR3654	ACS	2.4 MB	1.6 MB	33.3	1.6 MB	33.3
2023CrystGrowthDes8469	ACS	3.7 MB	0.9 MB	75.7	0.9 MB	75.7
2024CrystGrowthDes71	ACS	10.5 MB	1.5 MB	85.7	1.4 MB	86.7
2023CRV12135	ACS	9.4 MB	6.1 MB	35.1	5.3 MB	43.6
2023CRV13291	ACS	25.5 MB	4.0 MB	84.3	3.7 MB	85.5
2023CRV13713	ACS	12.0 MB	4.5 MB	62.5	4.2 MB	65.0
2023JCE4674	ACS	2.8 MB	2.2 MB	21.4	2.1 MB	25.0
2023JCE4728	ACS	2.6 MB	1.0 MB	61.5	1.0 MB	61.5
2023JOC16679	ACS	4.7 MB	3.2 MB	31.9	3.0 MB	36.2
2023JOC16719	ACS	9.9 MB	2.4 MB	75.8	2.1 MB	78.8
2023OL9002	ACS	2.4 MB	1.2 MB	50.0	1.1 MB	54.2
2023OL9243	ACS	2.2 MB	1.4 MB	36.4	1.4 MB	36.4
2023Tetrahedron133750	Elsevier	1.2 MB	1.0 MB	16.7	0.6 MB	50.0
2024Tetrahedron133787	Elsevier	1.9 MB	1.8 MB	5.3	1.6 MB	15.8
2023TL154433	Elsevier	831 kB	721 kB	13.2	497 kB	40.2
2024TL154885	Elsevier	1.6 MB	0.9 MB	43.8	0.9 MB	43.8
2024PCCP713	RSC	1.0 MB	1.0 MB	0.0	0.5 MB	50.0
2024PCCP770	RSC	2.3 MB	2.1 MB	8.7	0.8 MB	65.2
2024TheorChemAcc4	Springer	1.7 MB	0.8 MB	52.9	0.7 MB	58.8
2023TheorChemAcc133	Springer	1.7 MB	1.0 MB	41.2	1.0 MB	41.2
2024JSulfurChem138	Taylor & Francis	469 kB	248 kB	47.1	247 kB	47.3
2023JSulfurChem269	Taylor & Francis	5.6 MB	2.9 MB	48.2	2.0 MB	64.3
2023Synthesis3777	Thieme	976 kB	936 kB	4.1	528 kB	45.9
2023Synthesis3947	Thieme	2.2 MB	2.2 MB	0.0	1.9 MB	13.6
2024ACIEe202310983	Wiley	877 kB	800 kB	8.8	507 kB	42.2
2024ACIEe202314446	Wiley	2.5 MB	2.4 MB	4.0	1.2 MB	52.0
2023HCAe202300110	Wiley	10.4 MB	5.5 MB	47.1	2.9 MB	72.1
2023HCAe202300154	Wiley	10.4 MB	5.7 MB	45.2	2.2 MB	78.8
2023JApplCryst1618	Wiley	1.1 MB	1.1 MB	0.0	0.9 MB	18.2
2023JApplCryst1639	Wiley	2.8 MB	2.7 MB	3.6	1.2 MB	57.1
link2web.pdf	pdflatex	38.0 kB	9.8 kB	74.2	9.8 kB	74.2

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/18987/how-to-make-the-pdfs-produced-by-pdflatex-smaller?rq=1 ↩

2. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/93959/how-to-convert-a-color-pdf-to-black-white ↩

3. https://openpreservation.org/tools/verapdf/ ↩