Reducing PDF File Sizes on OSX

ColorSync UtilitySometimes when I print a file to a PDF, the resulting file is HUGE. There’s no reason for a print-ready 1 page, mostly text page made in Microsoft Word to be 7 – 40 MB.

Fortunately, there’s a little-known, but super-effective solution to reduce the size of your PDF files dramatically.

Open ColorSync Utility (search for it using spotlight) and then drag your PDF file to the ColorSync Utility icon in your dock to open it. From there, you’ll see a drop down on the bottom left.

Choose Reduce File Size and click Apply. Save the file and note the drastically reduced file size. I’ve gone from 7MB to 500kb with two clicks and even better in some cases.

Goodbye bloated PDFs!

Restarting the Dock on OS X

Everyone once in a while things go awry for me on OS X.

Symptoms often include hot corners suddenly no longer working, and spaces not switching when I switch applications.

Turns out the restarting your dock can fix this in a jiffy.

I’m a command line kind of guy, so open up terminal and type this in to restart the dock:

killall -KILL Dock

It looks pretty scary (“Kill! KILL!”), but all it’s doing is telling OS X to kill the Dock process for you, which it will auto-restart. Your dock will disappear for a moment and then come back in working order.