VACUUM returning disk space to operating system

Question

VACUUM usually does not return disk space to operating system, except in some special cases.
From the docs:

The standard form of VACUUM removes dead row versions in tables and indexes and marks the space available for future reuse. However, it will not return the space to the operating system, except in the special case where one or more pages at the end of a table become entirely free and an exclusive table lock can be easily obtained. In contrast, VACUUM FULL actively compacts tables by writing a complete new version of the table file with no dead space. This minimizes the size of the table, but can take a long time. It also requires extra disk space for the new copy of the table, until the operation completes.

The question is: how can this database state when one or more pages at the end of a table become entirely free be achieved? This can be done via VACUUM FULL, but I haven't got enough space to implement it. So are there any other possibilities?