Compress PDF
Reduce a file so it fits under an email or upload limit.
Runs on your device · one of 15 free tools
How to compress a PDF
- 1
Add your PDF
Drop the file in or click to browse. You'll see a preview alongside the compression options, so you can compare before and after.
- 2
Pick how hard to push
Light barely changes appearance; Balanced is the usual choice; Small visibly softens photos; Tiny converts to greyscale for strict portal limits. Each level says plainly what it trades away.
- 3
Compress and review
The tool reports how many images it recompressed and the exact size change. Zoom into the preview and read the smallest text before you commit — that's where quality loss shows first.
- 4
Download, or try another level
If it's still too big, step down a level and run again from the same screen. If it's smaller than you need, step up and keep more quality.
How this compressor is different
Most quick online compressors take a shortcut: they render every page to a photograph and save a PDF of photographs. It shows a big number, but the cost is severe — your text becomes unselectable pixels, links and form fields vanish, and anything that reads the document downstream (search, screen readers, copy-paste) stops working.
This tool does what professional compressors do instead. It finds the images embedded inside your PDF and re-encodes only those — downscaling and recompressing the photographic data while leaving text, fonts, vector graphics, links and form fields byte-for-byte untouched. A scanned document, which is mostly image data, shrinks dramatically. Your text stays real text.
Why some PDFs barely shrink — and that's correct
A PDF exported from Word or Google Docs is mostly text and font instructions, which are already compact. There's simply little to remove, and this tool will tell you so honestly rather than mangling the file to manufacture a percentage. If a tool claims to halve a text-only PDF, it has almost certainly converted your text into pictures — check whether you can still select a sentence in the output.
When a text document genuinely must get smaller, the realistic options are splitting it into parts, removing embedded images, or accepting that it's near its floor. The result screen points you to the Split tool for exactly this case.
Getting under strict limits (100 KB, 200 KB, 1 MB)
Government portals and application forms often cap uploads at sizes that seem impossible for scans. The order of operations that works: crop away any desk captured around the page, use the Tiny (greyscale) level — colour data is two-thirds of a scan of a black-ink document — and if the file is several pages, check whether the limit applies per file, because splitting into separate uploads is usually allowed and far easier.
A single-page ID scan can realistically reach 100 KB legibly. Ten pages under 100 KB cannot, at any quality worth submitting — if a portal seems to demand that, re-read its rules, because the limit is almost always per file.
Frequently asked questions
Will compressing make my text blurry?
No — that's the point of this approach. Text and vector graphics are never touched; only embedded photographic images are re-encoded. If you've seen blurry text from other compressors, they were converting whole pages into pictures.
Why did my PDF barely shrink?
Because it's mostly text, and text is already compact. The tool reports this honestly instead of degrading your file for show. Large savings are only physically possible on documents that contain substantial image data — scans and photo-heavy reports.
Which level should I use?
Balanced, unless you have a reason otherwise. Use Light when the document will be printed or archived, Small for receipts and internal paperwork, and Tiny (greyscale) only when you're fighting a hard portal limit.
Does compression remove links, bookmarks or form fields?
No. Because pages aren't re-rendered, everything except the image pixels survives exactly as it was — links click, fields fill, bookmarks navigate.
Is my file uploaded to compress it?
No. The images are decoded, resized and re-encoded by your own browser. Load the page, go offline, and it still works.
Can I compress a password-protected PDF?
Remove the password first with the Unlock tool, compress, then re-protect the result. Encrypted content can't be read, so it can't be recompressed.