If your spreadsheet includes image, audio, or video files, you can reduce its file size to make it easier to send, post, or share.
If you don’t want to permanently change your original spreadsheet, you can save a copy of it with a smaller file size instead.
Choose File > Reduce File Size (from the File menu at the top of the screen).
Select the adjustments you want to make:
Scale down large images: Images are scaled to the resolution used in the spreadsheet while preserving visual quality. For example, if you added a photo to your spreadsheet and resized it to be smaller, selecting this option removes the unused image data.
Note: Whether or not you select this checkbox, if an image is in a format that won’t display on an iOS device, it’s automatically converted to a format that will.
Remove trimmed parts of movies and audio: If you trimmed the start or end of movies or audio (using the controls in the Format sidebar), the trimmed portions are deleted.
Most compatible (H.264): Movies in your spreadsheet are converted to H.264 format, which plays on most iOS devices and Mac computers.
High efficiency (HEVC): This format option appears only if you’re using macOS 10.13 or later and your Mac supports hardware HEVC encoding. Movies in HEVC format have the best quality at the smallest file size, but they can be played only on devices with iOS 11 or later and Mac computers with macOS 10.13 or later.
If you’re using macOS 10.13 or later and Numbers 5.0 or later and you select this format, you can later add HEVC files to the reduced-size spreadsheet or copy. For more information about HEVC, see this Apple Support article.
Note: H.264 and HEVC don’t support alpha channels, so transparency is converted to a black background.
Preserve original format: This retains the current movie formats. In this case, any movies in formats incompatible with iOS aren’t optimized and therefore don’t play on iOS devices.
Movie Quality: Set the maximum resolution for movies. Movies with a resolution smaller than the maximum aren’t scaled up.
Click a button to apply the adjustments:
Reduce This File: Applies the settings to the original spreadsheet.
Reduce a Copy: Applies the settings to a copy of the spreadsheet and preserves the original spreadsheet.
Note: It’s possible to choose a combination of options that makes the file size larger.