How do I reduce PDF file size in monday.com?

Use the File Compress app. Add a Compress PDFs recipe in the board's automation center with a button or status trigger, choose medium or high, and fire the trigger. The smaller PDF replaces the original or goes to another column.

My PDF is 30MB of scans. What should I do?

Re-scan at 200–300 DPI, or compress the page images before combining them into a PDF. Then upload. Structural optimization alone will not help much with image-heavy PDFs.

Will reducing the size change the PDF's appearance?

No. File Compress uses lossless structural optimization, so every page renders identically.

Can I reduce the size of many PDFs at once?

Yes. Select multiple items, or set an automation to compress PDFs as they are uploaded to a Files column.

Does the compressed PDF keep bookmarks and form fields?

Yes. Object-stream optimization preserves bookmarks, annotations, form fields, and hyperlinks.

How to reduce PDF file size in monday.com

ZackFile Compress DeveloperJuly 17, 20262 min readHow-to guide

Key takeaways

What is the quickest way to reduce a PDF's size in monday.com?: Run the File Compress app on the board at medium level. It rewrites the PDF with object streams and strips metadata, with no change to the pages.
Why won't my scanned PDF get much smaller?: Structural optimization does not re-encode the images inside a PDF. A scan-heavy PDF has to be fixed at the source — lower scan DPI or image compression before the PDF is assembled.
Does reducing PDF size lose any content?: No. File Compress does not remove pages, text, form fields, or links. It only removes redundant structure and document metadata.
How big is too big for a monday.com board?: The hard limit is 500MB per file. In practice, PDFs over ~10MB slow down previews and eat storage, so they are worth compressing.

Reducing PDF file size in monday.com starts with knowing why the file is large. The File Compress app by ColumnMate handles the common case — structural bloat — by rewriting the PDF with compressed object streams and dropping document metadata, directly on the board. For image-heavy PDFs, the fix is upstream.

First, diagnose the PDF

Open the PDF and ask one question: is it mostly text, or mostly pictures of pages?

Mostly text (exported from Word, Google Docs, a design tool): the weight is in fonts and redundant structure. Structural optimization works well.
Mostly images (scanned contracts, photographed documents, screenshot compilations): the weight is in embedded JPEGs or PNGs. Structural optimization barely moves the number.

The PDF format stores each of these very differently, which is why one approach does not fit both.

How do I tell which kind I have?

If you can select and copy a paragraph of text, it is text-based. If trying to select text selects nothing or selects the whole page as one block, it is a scan.

Path 1: text-based PDF — compress it on the board

Install File Compress (admin, once).
In the board's automation center, add a Compress PDFs recipe.
Use a button trigger for one-off use, or a status trigger to optimize documents automatically once they are final.
Set the source column, target column, and level — medium or high both also strip metadata.
Turn it on and fire the trigger.

Expect 5–25% smaller with zero visual change. See how to compress PDF files in monday.com for the mechanics.

Path 2: image-heavy PDF — fix the source

Structural optimization cannot re-encode the pictures inside a PDF, so tackle them before the PDF exists:

Situation	Fix
Scanning now	Scan at 200–300 DPI, grayscale for text documents
Have loose page images	Compress them (JPEG, medium) then combine into a PDF
Have a finished scan PDF	Re-export at lower DPI in Acrobat or a tool like Ghostscript, then re-upload
Photos of a document	Compress the photos first — see reducing image file size in monday.com

Keeping PDFs small going forward

If PDFs land on a board regularly — signed proposals, vendor invoices, weekly reports — compress them on arrival with an automation. For a board that has already accumulated large files, run a status-triggered recipe once across the existing items with a batch status change, plus a storage audit (see reducing monday.com file storage usage).

The short version

Diagnose first. Text-based PDFs compress well with a File Compress recipe at medium or high. Image-heavy PDFs need lower scan DPI or image compression before assembly — structural optimization will not save them. Then automate compression for new uploads. Start with the setup guide.

Frequently asked questions

How do I reduce PDF file size in monday.com?: Use the File Compress app. Add a Compress PDFs recipe in the board's automation center with a button or status trigger, choose medium or high, and fire the trigger. The smaller PDF replaces the original or goes to another column.
My PDF is 30MB of scans. What should I do?: Re-scan at 200–300 DPI, or compress the page images before combining them into a PDF. Then upload. Structural optimization alone will not help much with image-heavy PDFs.
Will reducing the size change the PDF's appearance?: No. File Compress uses lossless structural optimization, so every page renders identically.
Can I reduce the size of many PDFs at once?: Yes. Select multiple items, or set an automation to compress PDFs as they are uploaded to a Files column.
Does the compressed PDF keep bookmarks and form fields?: Yes. Object-stream optimization preserves bookmarks, annotations, form fields, and hyperlinks.

Zack

File Compress Developer at ColumnMate. Writes about file management, storage, and automation inside monday.com.

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