Large PDF exports even with compression plugins?

Hi @Esther_UX we ran into this issue as well. We built Compressed PDF & Image Exporter which runs directly in Figma, and also lets you easily reorder PDF pages. This plugin will let you save around 90% of the file size without visually decreasing the quality.

Try it out-- wed love to hear your thoughts.

This issue of size is so frustrating - most CV uploaders have a max file size of 2MB and I can’t get mine below 2.4 using online compression tools. I can’t seem to use the plugin recommended earlier in the thread as it doesn’t recognise my fonts, even though I’m using arial! 🤨

Considering re-writing my CV in Google. I’ve wasted so much time on this, and it’s impacting my job search.

Massively disappointed.

Hi @Taylor_Osborn . Thank you for suggesting the compressor plugin. Actually I’ve tried the plugin before writing my previous post. The plugin does a very good job at compressing the PDF to a normal size.

Unfortunately there are still parts of that plugin that makes me not want to use it. When exporting, all the pages are in a random order, no matter what I do in my Figma file (like changing the order of the frames). My PDF’s are often over 30 pages. The plugin offers a method to change the order of pages, but it’s a hassle to do so and doesn’t work quite user friendly. It’s still a lot of work and it currently makes compressing outside Figma the faster option.

Another thing I noticed is the plugin does change colors of images. That’s undesirable, as I need to use the PDF-files for clients in a professional way. If the plugin has any updates that solve this, reach out to me! 🙂 I’d be happy to use it once it fixes these issues as described above.

Hi @Esther_UX, I think you might be referring to a different compression app.

Compressed PDF and Image Exporter, (pictured below,) lets you reorder / add / remove PDF pages in the app before compressing everything. It can also export compressed images, webp, pngs with transparency, and jpgs with quality settings offering different amounts of compression.

As for the color changes-- unfortunately it is pretty much guaranteed that any form of compression will impact color fidelity. The way compression works is by more efficiently organizing colors and pixels and creating larger groupings of like colors. This is largely why compressed assets are a smaller file size.

Hi @Taylor_Osborn , I indeed have confused your plugin with another plugin for compressing files. It looks really similar, oops. I am aware of the unavoidable color change when compressing, but I already put images in Figma that are below 100kB in size, so there shouldn’t be much more compressing needed there.

I haven’t used your suggested plugin yet, but am currently working on a document that needs exporting next week. Since there’s only 40 free pages to export each a month, I’ll wait to see if it works the way I prefer. If so, I’ll try & convince my boss in taking a subscription 🙂 It would be an amazing feature to be able to select the maximum mb’s it can export to for like mailing programs (instead of guessing the % of compression and using precious pages each month to figure it out).

I’ll try not to forget to share my experience with the plugin next week!

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.