Compress PDF

What this tool does

This tool shrinks scanned and image-heavy PDFs. It works especially well when you hit email or upload size limits.

Each page is redrawn as an image, compressed as JPG and rebuilt into a new PDF. The number of pages and each page's size and orientation stay the same as the original. Choose Strong, Medium or Light.

The result screen shows the before and after size and the percentage saved, and the file downloads as 'name_compressed.pdf'. Everything happens inside your browser, so your documents never leave your device.

When it comes in handy

When a document from a copier or a phone scanning app is too big to attach to an email.

When an application form or government portal says attachments must be under a certain number of MB.

When you want a photo-heavy catalog or portfolio to open quickly for people downloading it or receiving it in a chat app.

When several documents must go in as 'one PDF under X MB', combine them with 'Merge PDF' first, then shrink the result here to meet both requirements at once.

Slimming down scanned documents you keep on your phone for reference — contract copies, insurance papers and the like — to save storage space.

Choosing a compression level

'Strong' renders pages at about 1.1× their size (around 79 dpi) and saves them as JPG at quality 50. It gives the smallest file, but small print can get mushy, so it suits photo-led material or documents that will only be read on screen.

'Medium' (recommended) uses 1.5× (around 108 dpi) at quality 65 — a sensible setting for everyday documents read on screen.

'Light' uses 2× (around 144 dpi) at quality 80. Pick it when there's lots of small text or detailed charts, or the document might be printed later.

Whatever level you choose, the page count and page sizes don't change, so it prints at the same size as the original.

How it compares to other options

The optimize feature in a PDF editor can shrink just the images and leave the text alone, which may suit documents where searchable text really matters. This tool takes the simpler route of turning whole pages into images, which makes it a particularly good fit for scans that never had real text in the first place.

Choosing a lower resolution when scanning gives you a smaller file from the start. This tool is the easy fix when the large PDF already exists and rescanning isn't practical.

Things to keep in mind

Links, bookmarks, form fields and comments are lost — only what you see on the page remains. If your document has fill-in fields, open the compressed copy and check that everything still shows.

Because text becomes part of an image, it looks softer than the original when you zoom in a long way.

Password-protected PDFs won't open. Remove the password and add the file again.

Long PDFs are processed one page at a time, so they take a while. The progress bar shows which page it's on — keep the tab open until it's done.

How to use

1. First choose a compression level — stronger means smaller with slightly lower quality.
2. Add your PDF and compression starts right away.
3. When it's done, click 'Download compressed PDF'.

FAQ

Tips

• Start with 'Medium' and switch to 'Strong' if it's still too large.
• Compressed PDFs lose selectable text, search and links — keep your original.
• Text-only PDFs are already small and usually won't shrink this way.