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IRIS Inc. All Deals Business & Finance Software PDF Conversion Software

IRISCompressor Pro

Compress PDF Files Up To 20X Smaller

$89

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for PC

Platforms: Windows XP, Vista, 7

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IRISCompressor Pro, PDF Conversion Software Screenshot

If you work with a lot of documents in the PDF format, there's a good chance that you occasionally try to email a document as an attachment, only to find that it's too large! Multiply this "too-large-of-a-file" scenario across a large organization or document library, and you're also faced with the daily threat of running out of hard drive space for your immense PDF collection. That's why now is the right time to consider getting a copy of IRISCompressor Pro to fix all of your problems! It's today's discount software promotion, available for a limited time.

IRISCompressor Pro reduces the size of your PDF files, and of your overall PDF library of documents, by compressing images and PDF files and creating output that's 20 times smaller! With IRISCompressor Pro, you'll be able to attach PDF files that were previously too large to email, and you'll marvel at how much disk space you free up once you've shrunk all of your PDF file sizes. Best of all, IRISCompressor Pro adds even more benefit to your documents, by transforming standard images and PDF files into a fully-indexed, keyword-searchable format.

Using IRISCompressor Pro to shrink your PDF files could not be any simpler. Just right-click on any image or PDF, select an output location, and BOOM, it's done. Along the way, take advantage of bonus features that let you merge up to 25 PDF documents and images into a single compressed file. And even though IRISCompressor Pro boasts output that's 20 times smaller, fully indexed, and keyword searchable, you can be reassured that all converted PDF files remain compliant with any PDF viewer, and retain all document layout!

Review Written by Derek Lee

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AbdulRahiem Dubelaar Does compressing the PDFs have any negative effects on converting the PDFs to Word or Excel, etc.? Many PDFs, especially those made of scanned images and therefore require OCR on them, are notoriously difficult to convert to anything useful.

Apr 18 2012 at 10:35am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. A PDF is made out of several layers. The compression is done on specific layers that does not affect the text layer. The fact that the image layer is compressed does not create any specific issue if you want to convert the PDF to Word afterword (a feature that is not contained in IRISCompressor). By actually using IRISCompressor, you benefit from IRIS's OCR engine. The actual text extraction will be as good as it gets.

IRIS Inc. - Apr 18 2012 at 12:00pm Copy Link

Avi S I'm actually currently in need of a PDF shrinker, and I was just about to purchase PDFShrink from Apago when I noticed this deal. So now I'm considering IRISCompressor Pro instead. I'd like to please inquire:

1] Will IRISCompressor Pro use JBIG2 compression for black and white images? (JBIG2 is the leading algorithm for B&W compression, but not supported by all engines).
2] Does IRISCompressor Pro have an option to change color PDF's to greyscale, and to change greyscale PDF's to black and white? In many cases I have heavy PDFs that are so heavy because of color or greyscale scanning, but in many cases I don't need the full color and I'd rather have a quick and small version without the color/grey.
3] Does IRISCompressor Pro provide optimized settings to convert documents for iphone reading? (PDFShrink does have such an option).
4] When a PDF file is bloated due to the use of many different and diverse fonts, does IRISCompressor Pro have an option to reduce the space that the fonts take up in the file?
5] In general, do you (or anyone else) have a list of advantages/disadvantages of IRISCompressor Pro vis-a-vis PDFShrink?

Apr 19 2012 at 2:45am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. The only thing to know about IRISCompressor is that you simply right-click on a PDF, or an image file, and find it compressed where you want it. There is no learning curve and no intimidating jargon. Just compress what you have, where you have it.
IRIS is, first and foremost, an OCR company, so not only your PDF are compressed, the text they contain is also fully extracted and made available to you. It goes one important step beyond less expensive compression technologies.

IRIS Inc. - Apr 19 2012 at 6:33am Copy Link

Avi S @Jean-Marc Fontaine -
Your response is not very helpful. I asked a number of very specific questions regarding JBIG2 compression, color vs. BW, font issues, and more, and you have not answered any of them. The people who frequent this forum are extremely technically minded power users who are very interested in the details. Please relate to the issues that I have raised.
Additionally, since you've mentioned that OCR technology is used as part of the process: the PDF files that I am involved with contain mostly Hebrew characters, with full vocalization (diacritics). Does the OCR support this? How will this impact upon the compression?

Apr 19 2012 at 7:15am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. Hello,
Our compression is proprietary and does not use any other compression methods.
Here is some information you can find on our wbesite about our compression technology:

Hyper-compression technology
iHQC™ (intelligent High Quality Compression) is the hyper-compression technology from I.R.I.S. This feature dramatically reduces the size of your color or black & white PDF or XPS without compromising the color quality of the images and the legibility of your document. You will get a better quality than in JPEG2000 with a much smaller file.

The second and fourth questions are outside the scope of IRISCompressor that resists the technical temptation to give users options they need to learn and/or rarely use. You may not be one of them, but our internal customer survey show that people want to "right-click and compress" their PDF as easily as they "right-click and zip a file" or "right-click and send a file". The goal of IRISCompressor is simplicity. In other words, no specific font optimization or image color adjustment will be found in IRISCompressor.
The PDF is indeed optimized for a large variety of screen sizes, Iphone and Ipad included.
We do not provide any comparaison study with other products.
IRISCompressor Pro supports 130+ languages but Hebrew is unfortunately not one of them. Hebrew OCR is supported by Readiris Pro 12 - Middle East and Readiris Corporate 12 versions that can be found on IRIS's webiste. Note that Readiris Corporate has an even higher comnpression level than IRISCompressor.
Thank you for your interest in IRISCompressor!

IRIS Inc. - Apr 19 2012 at 3:36pm Copy Link

Avi S @Jean-Marc Fontaine
1] You have written: "Our compression is proprietary". Certainly, the algorithm you choose when processing the files is yours to keep in confidence. However, at the end of the day, you must output a PDF file with images compressed with one of the standard compression algorithms (e.g. FLATE, CCITT, JBIG2, etc.), because otherwise the PDF would not be readable in any standard PDF reader. Proprietary compression algorithms for individual images are not an option when producing a PDF file that is to be read on existing systems.
Additionally, I am not asking you to reveal anything secret; anybody who looks at one of your resulting pdf files can open it up in a PDF viewer and have it note the compression method that was used for each image.
So, once again: when your program writes the images of the pdf file, does it use JBIG2, or does it resort to one of the older algorithms like FLATE?
2] You have noted that Hebrew OCR is not supported by this product. Are we to infer, then, that IRISCompressor Pro will have no effect whatsoever on Hebrew files? Or will it nevertheless compress them partially? (Note: this is not an oddball question; anyway who has been following BDJ knows that there are quite a few Hebrew speakers on the forum!)

Apr 19 2012 at 3:50pm Copy Link

lemonade soda Cher M Fontaine,

I have just tested your demo version. I used a 4 page scan of a Vehicle Registration document, with coloured and lined background.

Excellent results. I like it, and have signed up for the offer. However, could I make 4 suggestions to your development team:

1) Along with autoskew and autoorientation there should also be an option for autocontrast. e.g. a poor contrast scan is read successfully, but since you deskew it, and reorient it, it would be nice to also have a better quality of printout by correcting contrast. The competitor product LuraDocument Compressor does a better job of this.

2) Please allow the installer to "modify" and add a language so that I can add another language to the OCR sets. Having to fully uninstall, and then reinstall, seems a rather cumbersome way of adding another language.

3) The "in progress bar" doesnt track progress through the document. Just the barbershop bar in purple was spinning, but no indication of progress through one page or through the 4 page document.

4) Only one of the 8 cores on my E5420 workstation was being utilised (CPU not more than 15% utilisation). Can you algorithms be improved to allow multiple cores, perhaps one core attaching each separate page or separate file. Seems a shame that a computationally intensive process like OCR and compress has 7 cores sitting idle!

+++

The last request would be for a very basic folder watch. Not a full workflow management system, but something simple. Many of us looking at this tool already have a scanner and scanner software which will save the file on our PC... it would be nice to have IRISCompressorPro pick up this file when it lands and use the default options on it.

(I'm not looking for an enterprise solution with all the xml bells and whistles, database connectors, repagination, etc.)

Cordialement!

Apr 20 2012 at 8:19pm Copy Link

Hitman Dear developer, are Asian languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc, contained in the software? Thanks.

Apr 20 2012 at 8:41pm Copy Link

Brian H Hi- Are image qualities within the PDF degraded ("lossy") when the PDF is compressed, or is there absolutely no image degradation ("lossless") after the compression? Thanks- and it looks like a very good product! -Brian

Apr 21 2012 at 12:16am Copy Link

Pavi Johnson Hi, I would like to try the demo version, but when I try to download it, I get the demo videos emailed to me instead.

I always "try before I buy"... how can I get the demo version?

Best, /Pavi

Apr 21 2012 at 1:46am Copy Link

Experience I can't trial this in a VM?, it refuses to run both 32/64bit
When I press no to activate it just ends and there is no trial?

License policy a bit scary hence I'm only able to activate on 1 PC.
I may Install 3 times at most?

I've planned to Upgrade/Replace current PC in a couple of months which means this software would be lost and I would have to repurchase all over again.

Apr 21 2012 at 2:22am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. You would not need to repurchase again. Register the software and keep your proof of purcashe (although we have a copy as well).

IRIS Inc. - Apr 21 2012 at 9:01am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. Here is the link to demo the producrt for 10 days: http://www.irislink.com/c...essor.aspx

IRIS Inc. - Apr 21 2012 at 9:02am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. It is not a lossless quality. The image is reworked. The setting we have for IRISCompressor Pro is geared to preserve the quality of the image.

IRIS Inc. - Apr 21 2012 at 9:05am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. Yes Gif is supported.

IRIS Inc. - Apr 21 2012 at 9:07am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. Asian languages are not supported in the IRISCompressor. Look for Readiris Pro and Readiris Corporate for high quality support of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew.

IRIS Inc. - Apr 21 2012 at 9:09am Copy Link

IRIS Inc. @Lemondae Soda: Indeed, very good feed-back. This is the first version of IRISCompressor. I am sure the lab will accumulate a lot of such feed-back to improve the product further.
Merci!

IRIS Inc. - Apr 21 2012 at 9:11am Copy Link

Hitman Thanks for the prompt clarification. Just FYI, you have a strong competitor now: PDF-XChange is offering multi-language OCR for free, without additional charge for Asian languages:
http://www.tracker-softwa...viewer-ocr
And their compression is top-notch as well.

Apr 21 2012 at 12:11pm Copy Link

Mark Durieux Hello all: I don't have the technical knowledge of other members here, but I did want to say that I recently produced a very "textual", notes oriented mindmap, saved as an image to pdf. That pdf was then reworked via IRISCompressor Pro just a few minutes ago to produce the same mindmap but with most of the imaged text converted to searchable text, all the while retaining the quality of a somewhat complex diagram. I'm quite impressed with the results - http://www.flipdrive.com/...14bde0.pdf . Now we have a format that seems to have educational value to members sharing digital information such as mindmaps - easily shared, searched, and indexed. However, if there's a better way to do this kind of thing, I'd appreciate knowing about it!

Apr 21 2012 at 1:40pm Copy Link

Boiler Bob I'm using the Trial IRISCompressor Pro as I write this and out of three (3)files I've tried. ALL have FAILED! Based on the description and video, I was ready to buy, but now I'm glad I didn't.

The last one I tried to compress was 216 pages totaling 7,058 KB and IRISCompressor Pro only process the first 25 pages for a total 1,997 KB. NOT very inpressive.

Apr 21 2012 at 2:54pm Copy Link

RJ Gowan I downloaded the Trial from the link provided above. When I click on "No" in the activate dialog, the dialog closes but CompressorPro does not load. Others have also had same problem.

Apr 21 2012 at 7:00pm Copy Link

Stan Same here...

Apr 21 2012 at 9:14pm Copy Link

Ed Ward Norton Sonar reports that the trial download setup.exe file is suspicious and won't allow me to install. Any suggestions?

Thank you.

Apr 21 2012 at 10:40pm Copy Link

lemonade soda I purchased the PDF Compressor Pro based on the BDJ promotion. The utility is useful and easy to use, despite my recommendations for small improvements made in an earlier post.

HOWEVER, a complete deal-breaker after now using this software on the third attempt is that even the "PRO" version has a "hidden in the small print" maximum file size of 25 pages. WHAT! I have already spent hours scanning old paperwork, got the materials into PDF format, want to compress the resultant document for emailing or archiving, and the damn software compresses for 5 minutes then errors "25 pages maximum".

Disgraceful restriction on "pro" software. Makes this completely useless, and I will move to a competitor product.

And NO - don't tell me to use PDFtools to chop up the document - compress with IRIS - and then restitch with PDFtools. And NO - don't tell me to spend another $139 on another IRIS product (Readiris 12) that can handle this filesize but has a million features I don't need.

What a waste of time. The whole purpose of paying for "pro" software is to make your life easier not more difficult. This software is a utility that ONLY compresses a PDF and nothing more. It's simple. And for my purposes that's all I needed. Yet it will not do more than 25 pages! Poor show!

Apr 25 2012 at 7:32am Copy Link

RJ Gowan lemonade - thanks for revealing this unreasonable limitation. I almost bought it, but decided if the trial wouldn't work, I'd better wait till next time. I had a better impression of IRIS - this really shakes that up. Sorry you were "taken."

May 15 2012 at 6:49am Copy Link

jw mouton i tried the trial but it did not work. kept asking me for an activationcode, no way around it. I then read to my surprise here that there is max of 25 pdf pages that can be compressed at the same time. too much money for a program that does not deliver.

Aug 13 2013 at 6:14am Copy Link