How to Quickly Check a PDF's Page Count and File Size
Before you send, print or submit a PDF there are three things worth knowing: how many pages it has, how big the file is, and what size the pages are. The PDF Info Viewer shows all of it without opening the document properly.
Why check first
Email attachment limits are the usual reason - most inboxes reject anything over about 25 MB, and finding that out after you press send wastes a round trip. Upload forms are stricter still and often less clear about why they refused.
Page count matters for printing, especially if someone else is paying for it or the document is going to a print shop by the page. And page dimensions catch a problem people miss entirely: a document built for A4 printed on Letter paper, or the other way round, comes out with margins trimmed or shifted.
How to check a document
Open the tool and choose your PDF. You'll see the page count, file size, page dimensions and the document's stored title straight away.
The title is worth a glance while you're there. It's what shows in a browser tab when someone opens the file, and it's frequently a leftover from whatever the document was first saved as. If it's wrong, the PDF Metadata Editor fixes it in a few seconds.
If the file is too large
The usual culprit is scanned pages, which are images and far heavier than text. Check the page count first - a 40 MB file with four pages is a scanning resolution problem, while a 40 MB file with four hundred pages is simply a long document. Splitting a long one into parts with the Split PDF tool is often the quickest way to get something sendable.
Reading the dimensions
Page size is reported in the units the document uses, and the two standards you will meet are A4 at 210 by 297mm and US Letter at 8.5 by 11 inches. They are close enough to look identical on screen and different enough to matter when printed: Letter is wider and shorter, so an A4 document printed on Letter loses a strip off the bottom or gets scaled down.
If you are sending a document to be printed somewhere else, particularly in another country, it is worth knowing which one you have before it comes back wrong.
Unusual dimensions are worth a second look too. A page much larger than either standard is usually a poster, a plan or a spreadsheet exported at full width, and it will need scaling before anyone can print it on an office machine.
Common questions
Does checking a document change it?
No. Nothing is written to the file - you're only reading what's already in it.
Why do the page dimensions matter?
Because a page sized for one paper standard prints with the edges shifted on another. Checking takes a moment; reprinting does not.
Does the page count include blank pages?
Yes. Every page in the file is counted, whether or not anything is printed on it.
Why is my file larger than the pages suggest?
Scanned pages and embedded photographs carry far more data than text. A short document can be heavy if its pages are images.
Need the details before you send?