A quick checklist before you send a PDF
Before that PDF leaves your hands, thirty seconds of checks saves real embarrassment. Size, fonts, hidden data, security. Here's the list, and how to fix each one in your browser.
Most PDF problems happen after you hit send, when it’s too late. The file’s too big and bounces. The fonts look wrong on the other end. There’s an author name in the properties you didn’t mean to share. It went out unprotected when it held something sensitive. None of these are hard to catch; you just have to look before you send, not after.
Here’s a quick checklist. None of it requires uploading your file anywhere.
1. Is it the right size?
Email systems and upload portals cap file size, and a PDF that’s too big either bounces or won’t upload. Scanned documents and image-heavy files are the usual offenders.
Check: look at the file size. If it’s near or over a limit you know about, deal with it now. Fix: compress the PDF down to size. It takes seconds and runs in your browser.
2. Will the fonts survive the trip?
A PDF doesn’t always carry its fonts. If it doesn’t, and the recipient’s computer lacks the font, the layout shifts and your careful document arrives looking broken.
Check: open the PDF’s properties and look at the font list; many readers show which fonts are embedded. Fix: if important fonts aren’t embedded, convert the file to PDF/A, which embeds them, so it looks the same wherever it opens.
3. What’s hiding in the metadata?
Every PDF carries hidden metadata: author name, the software that made it, timestamps, sometimes more. For an anonymous or sensitive document, your name sitting in the author field is a quiet leak.
Check: open the document properties and read the author, title, and other fields. If something’s there that shouldn’t be, you’ve caught it. Fix: you can extract the text and inspect the file locally to see what’s stored, and re-save a clean copy before sending, all without uploading.
4. Does it need a password?
If the PDF holds anything sensitive, a contract, financial data, personal details, and it’s going out by email, ask whether it should be protected.
Check: would you be comfortable if this file were forwarded to the wrong person? Fix: if not, protect it with a password and send the key through a separate channel.
5. Is it actually the final version?
Obvious, but it bites everyone eventually: the wrong draft, pages in the wrong order, a “DRAFT” stamp still on a final file.
Check: open it and skim. Right pages, right order, right version. Fix: reorder, split, or re-stamp as needed, all browser-based on files.co. If you’re issuing a draft on purpose, that’s when a clear header or footer marker earns its place.
Why this stays on your machine
The whole point of a pre-send check is care, you’re being careful with a document that matters. It would be odd to run that careful check by uploading the file to a stranger’s server, which is exactly what most online tools do.
files.co runs in your browser. Every step above, compress, convert, inspect, protect, happens on your own device, with nothing uploaded. You can confirm it with DevTools (F12) on the Network tab, or just by doing the checks offline.
Thirty seconds before you send saves a lot of “please ignore my last email.” Run the list, fix what it turns up, and the file leaves your hands the way you actually meant it to, all from your browser.