Optimize PDF files (with Ghostscript or other)

Question

Is Ghostscript the best option if you want to optimize a PDF file and reduce the file size?

I need to store alot of PDF files and therefore I need to optimize and red

Answer 1

You can obtain good results by converting from PDF to Postscript, then back to PDF using

pdf2ps file.pdf file.ps
ps2pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook file.ps file-optimized.pdf

The value of argument -dPDFSETTINGS defines the quality of the images in the resulting PDF. Options are, from low to high quality: /screen, /default, /ebook, /printer, /prepress, see http://milan.kupcevic.net/ghostscript-ps-pdf/ for a reference.

The Postscript file can become quite large, but the results are worth it. I went from a 60 MB PDF to a 140 MB Postscript file, but ended up with a 1.1 MB optimized PDF.