In Acrobat 9 there is a Split Document feature (Document/Split Document) which has three splitting options:
- Number Of Pages: Specify the maximum number of pages for each document in the split.
- File Size: Specify the maximum file size for each document in the split.
- Top-level Bookmarks: If the document includes bookmarks, creates one document for every top-level bookmark.
In practice, it seldom works to let Acrobat decide where to split the document. Usually the desired split is at the end of a section, before a major heading, not at some random page number or megabyte number.
RECOMMENDED METHOD: It is often simpler to use the Extract Pages feature (Document/Extract Pages). Figure out what pages should be in each pdf and then Extract from and to the desired pages to create new pdfs of the desired size.
There are also optimization and size reduction options in Acrobat:
- Document/Reduce File Size
- Document/Optimize Scanned PDF
- Advanced/PFD Optimizer
Again, in practice, these features seldom shrink a legal pdf to the desired size. They work well if the pdf consists of many images which can be optimized to smaller sizes. However, legal documents are usually text based, and this does not work well on a text-based document. There just isn’t enough shrinkable stuff in a text based pdf.
Embedded fonts take up a lot of space in a pdf, but if you want to guarantee the look of the pdf, you really have to embed the fonts.
