Problem working with PDF

I have a 700-some page PDF -- "The History of Bergen County" -- from Google and I need about 40 or 50 pages or so for a genealogy project. 700 pages weighs in at 17 megabytes. I'm expecting that if I extract what I need, I'll have about 1 or 2 megabytes.

First problem was to figure out how to cut the PDF up. There are dozens of Windows apps that will do that but the Mac side seems bare. But then it hits me -- I can hit Print, choose the pages I need, and then create a new PDF. No sweat!

The new PDF turns out to be 11 megabytes, which struck me as a tad large. So then I open the file in Preview and use the "Compress PDF" command in the Print window. It takes quite a while to complete -- I walked away so the exact time is unknown -- but when I come back, the new file, all 50 pages of it, is 87 megabytes. Not a typo. Eighty-seven!

That's pretty dog-gone weird. Any thoughts? It would be great if I keep file sizes to a minimum on this project.

mt