Compress a PDF — make the file smaller, no upload
Make a large PDF smaller by re-rendering every page as an image at a resolution you choose. It works reliably where other approaches do not — but it costs you the text layer, and the page says so up front.
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
All processing happens in your browser. Your file is never uploaded.
Because every page is re-encoded as an image, a PDF that is mostly plain text can come out larger rather than smaller — the tool says so when that happens, so you can keep the original. Scans and image-heavy brochures are where the saving is biggest.
How to use
- Drop in a PDF. The current file size is shown so you can compare afterwards.
- Choose a resolution. 96 DPI is a good starting point; drop to 72 for a smaller file still.
- Set the quality. 80% is usually indistinguishable. Below 50% the artefacts start to show.
- Compress and check. The saving is reported exactly, so you can retry at different settings.
Questions
How does this actually compress the file?
It renders each page to a bitmap, encodes that bitmap as a JPEG, and builds a new PDF from those images. Everything the original stored — embedded fonts, vector paths, metadata, layers — collapses into one flat picture per page, which is where the saving comes from.
What do I lose?
The text stops being text. You cannot select it, search it, copy it, or have software read it. Links and form fields go too. That is a real cost, so keep your original and do not send the compressed version anywhere it needs to be processed rather than just looked at.
My PDF came out bigger. Why?
Because a page of plain text stored as text is tiny, while a picture of that same page is not. If your document is mostly text it is already about as small as it can be, and this tool will tell you rather than quietly handing you a worse file. Try a lower resolution, or accept that there is nothing to gain.
What kind of PDF compresses well?
Scanned documents, photo-heavy brochures, presentations exported at print resolution, and anything produced by a phone scanner app. A 40 MB scan often lands under 3 MB with no visible difference at 96 DPI.
Is there a file size limit?
Only what your browser can hold in memory. Very long documents take a while because each page is rendered individually, and the progress is shown as it goes.