Large PDF exports even with compression plugins?

Agreed, this is something my team runs into a lot. Would love if Figma could prioritize a solve. Would be even better if PDFs could export with hyperlinks included

Please, Figma, help us. We use it extensively for presentations.

I also have an issue with the exported PDF from Figma; it directly works very poorly with “normal” PDF readers, such as “Preview” from Mac. Sometimes the content of the “slide” just disappears while scrolling up and down, probably due to some vectorial elements. It would be quite nice to have a clean PDF export. We cannot risk, at the moment, sending clients PDFs in which pages become just white.

Is someone having the same issues? how did you solve that?

Throwing my hat into the ring here—the PDF exports are simply too large. Even bringing the PDFs into AI and working to reduce the file size there doesn’t yield much fruit. It would be appreciated if Figma could work on a solution. Thanks!

Hi @Alberto2 what you mean is opening a PDF made in Figma with Preview and using Voice Over to read it? Am I getting this right?

Hi @Josh_Eriksen you are right, the PDF files are big and there is a benefit: you get the best quality possible from the exported PDF file.

I do the same with the Super PDF plugin in Figma and FigJam — best export quality possible. You can try it here for free https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1278730833034634209/super-pdf

Could you share more details about a typical PDF export you work on? How many pages are in the export? How big is the file in MB? How does the content look like in the PDF? Is it a lot of text or high quality images? Are there any images with schematics and fine details? Please share as much as you feel comfortable without revealing the content of your work.

@titanas No, just the normal preview. In my case I export the PDF via Figma, but when I open that with “preview” (Mac app), and by scrolling up and down some slides turns completely white…

@Alberto2 yikes, sorry to hear that. It seems an issue of itself. Are you using the latest version of the app 116.15.15?

Yes, I am testing now Super PDF which is very nice and easy to use (also free 😃 ) and it seems to solve my issues!

I’m also having a hard time with this. No images, just colors and native Figma font (Roboto Mono), and each page of a 2 page document is > 5MB. Even the Compressed PDF and Image Exporter plugin at Medium size can’t get it below 2MB. Not really sure what to do either? Adobe Acrobat can only compress my 2MB file down to 1.5MB, so must be something in the encoding on Figma export?

@ Adam_Arling
You can use our PDF export MKitFPdf, in this plugin we have used our own text renderer, which writes text as TEXT into the PDF, also all Figma vectors are retained. Only effects on Figma elements and images are exported as binary objects.
You can test it under MKitFPdf -Plugin

Hi @Adam_Arling

Could you say a bit more about the size of the pages and the content on them? You said no images, no colors but what’s in there? SVGs? Multiple font weights?

i have similar problems. i store my pdf in my Google drives and i have Sedja to compress but that only takes it to 2mb, while others go down to 1mb. even making all my images and fonts to be outlines it will only do 2mb and no lower. wish it was added into Figma since loads of people are already using Figma for designing and exporting it in PDF form. i can’t even check how big my file is before i export it. not like Adobe where it shows you what size it is going to come out as a whole before you export. no “substantial” preview box.

Hi everyone! I was trying to export my cv too, but i tried everything (changing fonts to arial, all pdf compress plugins, adobe tools etc.) then i tried somethings else and it worked! I exported my cv as 3X png format.(2x was bad resolution) Then i turned it into pdf in adobe acrobat(also my original cv has a portfolio link but the acrobat made it pdf by scanning, so i had to add a link in acrobat. It worked for a single page cv , if you have the same problem like that.

We regularly faced issues with exporting PDF presentations from Figma due to extremely large file sizes (often reaching 300-800 MB). To tackle this frustrating problem, we developed our own PDF compression tool at https://pdfcompressor.ru/ . It effectively reduces file sizes by optimizing images and document elements, making PDFs easier to email or upload without compromising quality.