As you can see in the image above, the images in my test PDF file are what’s taking up the most space, so that’s where I need to focus my attention. A window will open offering you a breakdown of what’s eating up all the space (see image below). You do this by clicking the Audit space usage button in the upper right corner of the PDF Optimizer dialog box. The first thing to do is figure out what’s taking up so much space in the file. Clicking the Settings button offers you complete control over how your PDF files get optimized. The second, and more handy location, is in the Save As dialog box, where you click the drop-down menu and select Adobe PDF Files, Optimized as seen below.
The first place is in the menubar under Advanced>Print Production>PDF Optimizer.
The PDF Optimizer can be found in two places. Thankfully, with Acrobat 8 and 9, a new PDF optimization method is available. The problem with using that method was that it virtually destroys your images, making them so blurry that you can barely see what they are.
Most people who work with PDFs in Acrobat versions older than version 8 know you can quickly reduce the file size of a PDF by going to the File menu and selecting Reduce File Size.
