Compress PDF
Make PDFs smaller by shrinking their photos and scans, with text left sharp. No upload, no signup, no watermark.
Files stay on your device How it works
Drop files here, paste, or
PDF · up to 10 files, 100 MB each
Your files
Your file is ready
How to compress a PDF
- Choose up to 10 PDFs, each up to 100 MB, or drop them on the box.
- Pick how hard to compress (below). Recommended suits most files.
- Press Compress PDF. Each result shows its size before and after; download them one by one or as a ZIP.
What gets smaller, and what doesn't
Most of a large PDF's size is usually its pictures: photos, and pages that were scanned. This tool re-saves each of those at a smaller size and a sensible JPEG quality, and keeps the new version only when it's clearly smaller. Text, fonts, links and drawings are left exactly as they are, so text stays sharp and you can still select and search it. That also means a PDF that is mostly text, such as a letter saved from a word processor, often can't shrink much: it's compact already. You get a note saying so, and the original back unchanged.
Choosing the strength
- Recommended: pictures keep up to 2,000 pixels on their longest side. An A4 page scanned at 300 DPI is about 2,480 × 3,508 pixels, so a scan comes out at roughly 170 DPI: fine on screen and for printing at home.
- Strong: up to 1,400 pixels at a lower quality. Good for reading on screen and for email.
- Maximum: up to 1,100 pixels at low quality, for the smallest file. Small print in scans can blur, so check the result.
Other things it cleans up
Data a PDF reader never shows is removed: embedded page previews, applications' private notes and the XML copy of the metadata. The document's title and author in its properties stay. Any part of the file that was saved without compression is compressed, without changing it.
Names and batches
Each PDF is compressed on its own and keeps its name with "-compressed" added, so report.pdf becomes
report-compressed.pdf. If one file can't be opened, because it's damaged or protected by a password,
it gets its own message and the others are still compressed.
Before you send it
Open the compressed copy and check the pages that matter, especially scanned forms and small print. A digitally signed PDF loses its signature when any change is made to it, compression included, so compress before signing. If you need a particular size, the pages for 1 MB, 500 KB, 200 KB and 100 KB step down until the file fits, and to send fewer pages, Split PDF can take out just the ones you need.