THE FILES.CO JOURNAL
Notes on PDFs, privacy, and standards.
How the tools work, why your files never leave the browser, and the technical detail that matters.
Why scanned PDFs are so big, and how to shrink them
A five-page scan somehow weighs 40 MB. Here's why scanned PDFs balloon, and how to shrink one to a sane size in your browser without uploading it.
Aug 14, 2026 · 5 min readStandardsA PDF has no page size until someone draws one
Page size in a PDF is just a rectangle written into the file. Change that number and the paper edge moves while the content stays put. Here's what actually resizes a page.
Aug 13, 2026 · 5 min readGuidesWhat counts as an annotation in a PDF (and why some of them look like content)
Sticky notes, highlights, links and form fields all live in the same list inside a PDF. Knowing which is which explains why removing them wholesale breaks documents.
Aug 12, 2026 · 5 min readGuidesA 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.
Aug 12, 2026 · 5 min readProductFiles.co PDF Suite 1.5.0: ten more tools and signing with your own certificate
Version 1.5.0 is approved on both the Mac App Store and the Microsoft Store. The app goes from 16 tools to 26, all free, and adds signing with the certificate already installed on your machine.
Aug 12, 2026 · 8 min readStandardsWhy you can't work out a PDF's size by adding up its pages
Half the pages doesn't mean half the megabytes. PDFs share fonts and images across pages, so the only honest size is the one you get after saving the file.
Aug 11, 2026 · 5 min readNo spam. Just PDF craft.
Once in a while, a useful note on PDFs and privacy.