How to Significantly Decrease Tax Return PDF file size for DocuSign Purposes

[sams]

Since July, our 2022 tax returns that are printed to PDF have increased in size tremendously. The size increase is preventing us from being able to efficiently use DocuSign, which is limited to 25,000 KB for some of our individual tax returns. Some of our 2022 returns are printing to over 42,000 KB currently. We are wondering if this is a result of a recent Lacerte update. We do not want to use an external PDF compressor that may be unsecure. Is there a setting in Lacerte that can be updated to reduce the printed file size?

[PhoebeRoberts]

I think this is something you-specific (which doesn't mean that it isn't fixable, just that calling tech support and seeing if they can fix the thing that's gone wrong for you is probably a more effective course of action). I printed a ~200 page return to PDF yesterday, and it's less than 4MB. Looks like a 78-page 1040 printed last week was about 2.5MB.

[jerry]

My 150-200 page returns are still about 5-6 MB after I print in Lacerte.

You can compress them locally using the "full" version of Adobe Acrobat (not the free Reader) and they will get down to 500-600k (see my improvement suggestion here).  But you will need to manually input the new, compressed file into DocuSign.

I'd call Support and see if there's a reason your files are so large.

[sams]

Thanks so much for the suggestion. We did contact support which ended up being a dead end but we will try again.

[sams]

Thank you for the information. We found the Adobe Compress File tool which has helped to reduce our file sizes to about 1/3rd the original size.

[DatabaseRobert]

All of my PDF sizes from the same time period look entirely normal, so I agree that it is most likely "you-specific."

Using the Lacerte Tool Hub, you might also try re-installing the PDF printer (uses the Amyuni driver) for Lacerte, or even just "everything available about printing" in that utility.



Robert