Advanced PDF makes this a quick one-click process. Imagine the scenario: you have an archive of PDF documents, the original creator has long since left your employ, the documents are protected by his owner password, which you don’t know.

While there’ll always be those who use such software for illicit purposes, the business benefit shouldn’t be underestimated. Not free, but just as useful to the PDF aficionado, is ElcomSoft’s Advanced PDF Password Recovery application. It’s just a shame there’s no batch-automation option. However, if you have a large PDF archive then even a 5% reduction is worthwhile. Older documents averaged a 35% reduction in our tests newer ones just 5%. We found it unpredictable, though, with many variables, such as the age of the original PDF document and the content, influencing how small a file would compress. It does this by removing duplicate PDF objects and takes advantage of better compression features in the latest PDF specifications, using either Flate or RunLength algorithms to get the smallest size possible.

The Free PDF Compressor from NicePDF says it all – a totally free application dedicated to compressing your existing PDF documents so they take up less room in your archive, on your server or while being emailed.

Pdffactory free