Compress PDF
Shrink a PDF that is too big to email or upload — usually by 40–70% with no visible difference. All of it happens on your device, however large the file.
- Processed on your device
- No upload, no waiting
- No signup, no watermark
How it works
Add your PDF
Drop the PDF onto the page. Nothing is uploaded, so even a 200 MB file starts instantly.
Pick how hard to squeeze
Recommended suits almost everything. Light protects print quality; Maximum gets the smallest possible file.
Compress and download
You are shown the before and after size, then download the smaller file.
Frequently asked questions
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends entirely on what is inside. Scans and photo-heavy documents usually drop 50–80%. A PDF that is mostly text may barely change, because text is already tiny — and in that case the tool tells you so and gives your original back rather than pretending.
Will the quality get worse?
At Recommended, not in any way you will see on a screen: images are re-encoded and resized to a sensible ceiling while text and vector artwork are untouched and stay perfectly sharp. Light is gentler still for print work. Strong and Maximum trade visible image quality for size, and say so.
Is my PDF uploaded to be compressed?
No. Everything runs in your browser. This matters here more than usual — the files people need to shrink are typically contracts, passports and bank statements being sent somewhere with an attachment limit.
Why does Maximum say the text stops being selectable?
Because it renders each page to a single image. That is what makes the file so much smaller, but the words become part of a picture, so they can no longer be selected, searched or copied. Use it only when size is the only thing that matters.
Can I compress a file that is already compressed?
You can try, and the tool will tell you honestly if there is nothing left to gain. Running compression repeatedly on the same file degrades images without helping the size.
Is there a file size limit?
No fixed limit — the practical ceiling is your device's memory. Large documents take longer because your own computer is doing the work, not a server queue.
Good to know: Text and vector artwork are already stored efficiently, so a text-only PDF has little to give — expect a few percent, not half. JPEG 2000 images are left untouched because browsers cannot decode them. Soft masks are deliberately skipped: re-encoding a transparency mask puts halos around everything it masks.