Most people email PDFs and get the dreaded "file too large" bounce-back. Or they upload to some sketchy free tool that watermarks everything and caps you at 2 files per day.

Here's what actually works: compress-first, send-after.

The right compression tool will strip embedded fonts, downsample images to print-quality (not screen garbage), and flatten layers — getting you 60-90% size reduction on most documents without touching the visible quality.

I've been running PDFForge to handle all our document ops: contracts, invoices, pitch decks. The stack is simple:

1. Merge all files into one PDF

2. Compress to email-friendly size

3. Password-protect before sending to clients

If you're still wrestling with PDF tools, hit me up — happy to help you build a cleaner workflow. That's what PDFForge is for.