I use pdftk to compress a pdf using the following command line
pdftk file1.pdf output file2.pdf compress
It works as the w
If file size is still too large it could help using ps2pdf to downscale the resolution of the produced pdf file:
pdf2ps input.pdf tmp.ps
ps2pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen -dDownsampleColorImages=true -dColorImageResolution=200 -dColorImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic tmp.ps output.pdf
Adjust the value of the -dColorImageResolution option to achieve a result that fits your needs (the value describes the image resolution in DPIs). If your input file is in grayscale, replacing Color through Gray or using both options in the above command could also help. Further fine-tuning is possible by changing the -dPDFSETTINGS option to /default or /printer. For explanations of the all possible options consult the ps2pdf manual.