Compress PDF

Shrinks a PDF by re-rendering its pages and re-encoding them as compressed images, with a quality slider from 0.3 to 0.9. On scanned and photo-heavy PDFs — where nearly all the weight is image data — this routinely cuts files to a fraction of their size. The original file is not modified.

How to use

1. Pick or drop the PDF.
2. Set the quality. 0.7 is the default; lower is smaller, higher is sharper.
3. Click compress and compare the reported before and after sizes.
4. Zoom into a page of the result to confirm the detail you need survived.

When you actually need this

• A scanned contract bounces off an upload portal's 5 or 10 MB cap.
• An email attachment with photographed pages exceeds the mailbox limit.
• Archiving years of scanned statements in a fraction of the space.
• A phone-scanned document that came out absurdly large for its content.

The trade-off to know before you compress

Compression here works by rendering each page and saving it as a JPEG at your chosen quality. For scans that is exactly right — they are images already. But on a born-digital PDF the process rasterises the text: it will look slightly softer on close zoom and can no longer be selected or searched. If the file is text-based and too large, check first whether it is embedded photos doing the damage. Always compress from the original rather than re-compressing an earlier compressed copy, because JPEG loss compounds with each pass.

Related tools

FAQ

Is my PDF uploaded anywhere when I use Compress PDF?

No. The file is opened and rewritten inside your browser, so contracts, invoices, medical records and anything else confidential never leave your device. This also means the tool keeps working if your connection drops mid-task.

Does Compress PDF preserve the original quality and text?

Yes. Pages are copied as they are, so vector text stays selectable and searchable rather than being flattened into an image. Only tools that explicitly re-encode images will change the visual data.

Can Compress PDF open a password-protected PDF?

An encrypted PDF has to be unlocked before it can be processed. Open it in your PDF reader, save an unprotected copy, and then run that copy through the tool.