By far, the best way to reduce file size is to start with clean originals.

Starting with original material, you can:

• enlarge the original using the zoom feature
• reduce the effect of dark backgrounds using the copy lighter feature.
• reduce shadows in gutter margins and improve readability of text near the margins by pressing gently, but firmly on the original as you copy.
• separate side-by side pages by recopying one page at a time and using the zoom feature to enlarge the text.

Starting with a copy, you can:

• separate side by side pages using the image separation feature and placing the pages in the feeder with the bottoms of the pages facing left. 

You can reduce file size by scanning at 240 dpi instead of our usual 300dpi.  This creates a significant drop in quality, but works well for long readings with very clean originals. 

If the article has dar text boxes, you can reduce file size and improve quality by increasing the brightness to 100%.

Theoretically, you can also use OCR (optical character recognition) to reduce file size.  However, it's not practical.  Its extreamely time consuming, often has character recognition errors, and sometimes causes problems with readers where only the text or only the image is transmitted.  Since you have to scan at 400 dpi (or more) to get reasonable OCR conversion, the file size isn't always smaller.

Acrobat Capture 3. automatically optimizes file size.  However, if you do significant cropping, you can further compress the cropped file.