Compress PDF with adjustable ratio One can use Preview to compress a PDF. However Preview on Mac OS X 10.7 does a too hard compression for my taste. There is only one compression setting.

Are there alternative tools that allows you to adjust the compression ratio?
As Guy mentioned, ColorSync Utility is what your looking for. For me the standard compression was also too little resolution &amp; too lossy compression. So I created a new filter in ColorSync - which then becomes available in e.g. Preview: Resolution 200 dpi, jpeg quality ~75%  

Step 1: Open ColorSync Utility &amp; create the new filter such as below



The above settings give me files with acceptable size and decent quality (e.g. for sending by e-mail)

Step 2: Open the PDF in Preview, then choose File > Export, Click the Quartz Filter pop-up menu, then choose the relevant filter ("Reduce File Size 200dpi" in this case)





Edit 2011-12-18: Seems for Lion it's not that straight forward regarding Preview integration. See here:


  Just copy your filter from /Users/YourName/Library/Filters/ to /Library/PDF Services/ and the customized profile will be back in preview.