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Writing about technology architecture, digital transformation, and the craft of engineering solutions that make a real difference.

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· 6 min read
Problem Solving

Midnight Call: Crushing a 983MB PDF Down to 48MB

Got an urgent midnight request: a 983MB product catalog PDF needed to be small enough to open on a phone. Online tools weren't safe, Stirling PDF crashed, Ghostscript compressed but destroyed the quality. The solution wasn't to compress the PDF, but to rebuild its contents. I built a custom Python pipeline: capture each page from the PDF viewer, crop, optimize for mobile resolution, and reassemble into PDF. Five rounds of iteration later: 983MB to 48MB. 95.1% smaller. 329 pages. Full color. Readable text. Done before 1 AM.

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