Exporting as PDF - huge size

Hey @Anna_Dabek ! If you are having size issues, you might want to check if you have any big images that might be affecting the total size of the PDF. If this is the case, you might want to download the images on a smaller size (You can do this in Photoshop) or compress the images individually. You can compress images using a Figma plugin called “Downsize”. You can check it out here: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/869495400795251845/Downsize

If you don’t have any images affecting the file, you might want to try other online compression tools. I recommend using this one: Compress PDF - Reduce File Size Of PDF Online

" Online tools only do so much, key issues with the large file size are due to

• text converted to vectors rather than simply embedding the font - online optimisation tools or plugins such as TinyImage won’t fix this
• Images should be optimised to a required dpi level (ie. 225, 300 etc)"

You can get more ideas from this community post:

Hi @MartinBajac Thank you for your response. It seems like I’ve tried everything you mentioned. I don’t have any images, just text, tables, and sometimes icons. I conducted an experiment just now, comparing two files. In the first one, I removed all text, and in the second one, I left it to compare. The first file was 1.7 MB, and the second one (with text) was 1.9 MB, so the difference is still negligible.

Could you please share any other advice to solve this? Like maybe saving this as without a text and add a text in another app like ilustrator or something like this?

@Anna_Dabek I’ve had the same problem with Figma and also found no solution. Without rhyme or reason, Figma just creates really big PDFs compared to other apps.

It’s actually quite a dealbreaker for me since there are many instances where I need PDFs to be small enough to email or meet uploading requirements. Oh well, hopefully it gets improved soon.

Same here.

I was concerned about the image sizes, but both them are 10ish kilobytes. But those shouldn’t be a problem. I was exporting the same file which was basically text only (a CV) and that 2 pager file is still over 5 mb.

Some refinement would be appreciated here. 🙂

This is a known issue and difficult to resolve due to how complicated the PDF file format has become. 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.
It wills seriously help when exporting assets to image or pdf that contain a lot of images.

I struggled to convert my Figma designs into a single PDF. I downloaded the designs as PDFs and tried combining them in Adobe Acrobat, but it wasn’t quite what I needed.

Then it dawned on me! In web design, we use SVGs to preserve image quality. I figured, why not download my Figma frames as SVGs and then use Canva to turn them into a PDF?

Eureka! It worked perfectly. The SVG format kept my designs crisp, and Canva made it simple to combine them into one PDF. Even though I downloaded the files as PDFs, combined them, and optimized them using Adobe Acrobat, I still ended up with a large 50MB file. Thankfully, this new method using SVGs helped me shrink it down to a much more manageable 2MB. You could also try directly adding all the SVGs to Adobe Acrobat.

Finally, this might not be the best solution for a massive amount of files, but for smaller projects, it’s a lifesaver!

Update here: [Launched] Export Compressed PDFs - #36 by Ahmed_Abdalla

Another update here: Launched: Export Compressed PDFs - #46 by Nadin_Tamer

It’s because Figma converts all text to SVG (X-objects) in PDF. There is a plugin that exports text as text. But wish Figma had this natively 🥲
https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1255146474787882010

If you're exporting PDF presentations from Figma and facing issues with huge file sizes (often reaching 300-800 MB), we've created a handy tool to solve exactly this problem. Our PDF compressor at https://pdfcompressor.ru/  significantly reduces your PDF's file size by optimizing images and elements, maintaining quality while making files easier to email or upload.