Compress PDF - Raycast Script

A Raycast script command for compressing PDF files using Ghostscript with PDF Squeezer-like quality settings.

Features

• Three compression levels - Low, Medium, High
• Batch processing - Compress multiple PDFs at once
• Smart detection - Skips files that can't be compressed further
• Size feedback - Shows total space saved after compression

Compression Levels

Level	DPI	Best For
Low	72	Web, email attachments
Medium	150	General use (default)
High	300	Printing

Requirements

• macOS
• Raycast
• Ghostscript

Installation

1. Install Ghostscript

brew install ghostscript

2. Install the script

Copy compress-pdf.sh to your Raycast scripts folder:

cp compress-pdf.sh ~/.config/raycast/scripts/
chmod +x ~/.config/raycast/scripts/compress-pdf.sh

Or add your custom scripts folder in Raycast preferences.

3. Reload Raycast

Open Raycast and the "Compress PDF" command should appear.

Usage

1. Select one or more PDF files in Finder
2. Open Raycast (⌘ + Space or your hotkey)
3. Type "Compress PDF"
4. Choose compression level (optional, defaults to Medium)
5. Press Enter

Compressed files are saved in the same directory with _compressed suffix.

How It Works

The script uses Ghostscript with optimized settings that rival commercial tools like PDF Squeezer:

• Font compression - Compresses and subsets embedded fonts
• Image downsampling - Bicubic resampling for smooth results
• Duplicate detection - Removes redundant embedded images
• Smart quality presets - Ghostscript's /screen, /ebook, /printer profiles

Why not use the existing Raycast PDF plugin?

The birkhoff/pdf-compression plugin uses basic Ghostscript settings that often fail to compress already-optimized PDFs. This script adds aggressive compression flags that achieve results comparable to PDF Squeezer.

Examples

# Before: document.pdf (2.4 MB)
# After:  document_compressed.pdf (586 KB)
# Result: ✅ Compressed 1 PDF(s) (saved ~1.8MB)

License

MIT

Author

Marcin