Pdf Bloat Debugging - blame None

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092c6e	Anonymous	2026-04-13 07:00:32	1	# PDF Bloat Investigation & Fix Cheatsheet
			2
			3	## Setup (Mac)
			4
			5	```shell
			6	brew install poppler # pdfinfo, pdfimages, pdffonts
			7	brew install qpdf
			8	brew install gs
			9	brew install mupdf # mutool
			10	brew install pdfcpu
			11	```
			12
			13	## Inspect PDF internals
			14
			15	### General info
			16	```shell
			17	pdfinfo document.pdf
			18	```
			19	Metadata, page count, file size, optimization status
			20
			21	### List images
			22	```shell
			23	pdfimages -list document.pdf
			24	```
			25	Check number, resolution, compression
			26
			27	### List fonts
			28	```shell
			29	pdffonts document.pdf
			30	```
			31	See embedded fonts
			32
			33	### Inspect objects
			34	```shell
			35	qpdf --show-object=279 document.pdf \| head -40
			36	```
			37	View dictionary of a specific object
			38
			39	### Extract raw stream data
			40	```shell
			41	qpdf --show-object=279 --raw-stream-data document.pdf > blob.bin
			42	file blob.bin
			43	```
			44	Confirm type of a large embedded stream (e.g. MOV, ZIP, ODP)
			45
			46	------------------------------------------------------------
			47
			48	## Shrinking PDFs
			49
			50	### Ghostscript (flatten to what you see)
			51	```shell
			52	gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.6 -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen \
			53	-dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sOutputFile=small.pdf document.pdf
			54	```
			55	Very small, low quality (72 dpi)
			56
			57	```shell
			58	gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.6 -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook \
			59	-dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sOutputFile=small.pdf document.pdf
			60	```
			61	Medium quality (~150 dpi)
			62
			63	```shell
			64	gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.6 -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer \
			65	-dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sOutputFile=small.pdf document.pdf
			66	```
			67	High quality (~300 dpi), good balance
			68
			69	```shell
			70	gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.6 -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress \
			71	-dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sOutputFile=small.pdf document.pdf
			72	```
			73	Very high quality (~600 dpi), larger size
			74
			75	------------------------------------------------------------
			76
			77	### qpdf (lossless rebuild from pages)
			78	```shell
			79	qpdf --split-pages=1 document.pdf page-%d.pdf
			80	qpdf --empty --pages page-*.pdf -- clean.pdf
			81	```
			82	Useful to drop catalog baggage, but fails if a page directly references a huge embedded file
			83
			84	------------------------------------------------------------
			85
			86	### pdfcpu (trim to page tree only)
			87	```shell
			88	pdfcpu trim -pages 1- -- document.pdf clean.pdf
			89	```
			90	Keeps only visible pages, lossless, but fails with embedded multimedia references
			91
			92	------------------------------------------------------------
			93
			94	### MuPDF
			95	```shell
			96	mutool clean -ggg document.pdf clean-mu.pdf 1-13
			97	```
			98	(Replace 13 with the number of pages in your PDF)
			99
			100	Aggressive garbage collection & deduplication
			101
			102	------------------------------------------------------------
			103
			104	## LibreOffice export best practices
			105	- Untick “Create hybrid file (embed ODF file)”
			106	- Tick “Archive PDF/A-1a”
			107	- Remove or replace video objects with screenshots before exporting
			108
			109	Prevents hidden ODP/MOV files from inflating PDF size
			110
			111	------------------------------------------------------------
			112
			113	# Rules of thumb
			114	- Only want visible content: Ghostscript (/ebook or /printer)
			115	- Lossless but smaller: qpdf split/merge, or pdfcpu trim
			116	- Hidden video/ODP bloat: Ghostscript or proper LibreOffice export