Looking through the uploads directories, I noticed some especially huge PowerPoint and Acrobat files. Files this big — 6mb, 8mb — take a long time to download, even on a fast internal network. Readers will get frustrated, and simply cancel the download. Or, they’ll get the file but it will be cumbersome to work with and hard to navigate through.

A few simple steps can make it go down a lot more easily.

For PDFs, always go back into your PDF and re-save it as a Reduced Size PDF. I tried this on a 6.3mb PDF file, and the new version was just 2.1mb.

For images, there’s no reason for any image to be more than 1100px wide or 800px high. More than that and it just doesn’t fit in a browser window. Scale it down before uploading, and you’ll save time and space.

For PowerPoints, double-click on any image to get the Picture Tools. Pick “Compress Pictures” from the menu bar, uncheck “Apply only to this picture,” and check “Delete cropped areas…” and the selection for E-mail size.

Also, in your Options screen, go to the Save tab. Uncheck “Save AutoRecover information,” then save the file with a new name before you upload it. This new version can be 3/4 the size of your original.