InDesign Shorts: Tip #4 – Shrink Your File Size

InDesign Shorts is a recurring series to help everyone of all levels master the ins and outs of the program and become more efficient designers. Got a burning InDesign question? Drop a comment below or join the LinkedIn group for more.

Anyone that works on proposals in InDesign knows that the document file size can get pretty beefy. But did you know some of those mounting MBs are bloat? That’s right – your proposal file is probably carrying around some extra baggage you don’t need. Most of the time this isn’t cause for alarm, but if you start noticing issues in your document (it failing to export, links breaking for no reason, tools not working, consistent crashing, generally ‘weird’ behavior, etc.) then it might be time to compress the file.

How do you compress an InDesign file? You save it, of course.

Simply ‘Save As’ the file and name it something like ‘updated’ or ‘version 2’. Then compare the file sizes and see if you’ve lost any ‘proposal bloat’. If you have, it’s safe to delete the old file and proceed with the new one (though if you’re like me, you’ll hang on to both until the proposal is turned in – just in case, of course).