Compress PDF
Reduces file size without breaking the pages.
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SHRINK THE PDF, KEEP THE PAGES.
Compress PDF lowers the size of a PDF without spoiling its pages. The gain comes from three places. The first is lossless: the document is rebuilt and the objects no page uses — old page versions left over from edits, deleted images, unused fonts — are dropped; in heavily edited documents that alone makes a big difference. The second is lossless too: uncompressed content streams are compressed again. The third is optional: the photos inside the document are re-encoded at a lower quality. Email attachments are limited to 20–25 MB on most services, and official application and upload forms often set a lower limit.
Photo quality has four levels: High (85%), Balanced (70%, recommended), Small file (55%) and Smallest (40%). For documents that will be read on screen you can also bring the longest edge of the photos down to 2000, 1400 or 1000 pixels. Re-encoding is only applied to photos embedded as JPG; images stored another way are left as they are, because a single wrongly converted image can spoil a page. If a re-encoded image comes out bigger, the old one is kept. If you choose “Don't touch (lossless)”, no image is changed; and if the result grows, the original file is given back. PDFs up to 1 GB can be uploaded. You can upload up to 8 PDFs at once; they are all processed with the same settings, and several files download as a single ZIP.
From start to finish
- Upload your PDF. Drag the file in or select it. The page count and the size are read. Password-protected PDFs cannot be opened.
- Choose the photo settings. For most documents, “Re-encode” and Balanced (70%). For a document going out by email, bring the longest edge down to 1400 pixels. Or type a target file size in KB: the tool lowers quality and size step by step to get under it, and tells you if it cannot. For a 1 MB limit, enter a value a little below it, such as 950 KB.
- Compress and download. The new size and the gain appear on screen. Download it; the copy on the server is deleted when you leave the tool.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my scanned PDF shrink so little?
If the scanned pages are stored as JPG they are re-encoded and shrink noticeably. If they are stored as black and white, losslessly or as CMYK, the tool leaves them alone; the gain then comes only from the lossless steps and stays limited.
Does the text get spoiled?
No. Text, vector drawings and fonts are not re-encoded; only photos are affected. The text stays exactly as sharp.
How much smaller does it get?
It depends on the document. With photo-heavy documents, shrinking by more than half is common; with a text-only document that is already well compressed, the gain can stay at a few per cent. The gain is written on the result screen.
Does my file stay on the server?
No. Your file reaches the server only to be processed and is deleted when the job is done; the output is deleted too once you download it and leave the tool. You don't need an account, a name or an email address, and your files are never sent to a third-party service. It is free to use: we set no hourly or daily quota on the number of jobs, we don't make you watch an ad before processing, and we add no watermark to the output.
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