BRAD KNOWLES PDF Compress vs. PDF Shrink Lite -- Has anyone done a detailed comparison of these two products? Testing them both on a few recent PDFs I have generated, PDF Compress munged the output because it wasn't licensed, sometimes created output files that were larger than the originals (perhaps because of the honking big "demo" graphics it puts on every third page), and could not understand the output file format from PDF Shrink Lite. Contrariwise, PDF Shrink Lite created files that were never larger than the originals, were always smaller than the files generated by PDF Compress, and could compress the output of PDF Compress down even further (to about the same size as the originals directly processed by PDF Shrink Lite). It didn't munge my output, although it is only good for 15 days. As far as user interface is concerned, PDF Compress is simpler and less confusing -- drop your PDFs on it, it throws up a little sheet with a barber pole showing you the progress, and then generates the output file (with a different file name by default, so the original isn't lost). PDF Shrink Lite shows that there is a lot more power under the hood, but is more confusing. On UI, PDF Compress wins, hands-down. For actual output, and not munging my test files, PDF Shrink Lite wins. If PDF Compress improved the amount of compression they provided, and arranged for a time-limited demo that did not munge my output files, I would rate them at least one point higher in all categories (where possible).
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