Compress PDF
Shrink a PDF by redrawing its pages as compressed images, best for scanned or photo-heavy documents. Everything runs in your browser — your file is never uploaded anywhere.
Drop a PDF file here, or click to browse
It stays on your device — nothing is uploaded.
When a PDF is too big to send
Marcus finished his design portfolio at 25 MB, and the job portal he's applying through stops accepting files at 5 MB. The deadline is tonight. Email has the same wall: Gmail caps attachments at 25 MB, and plenty of corporate mail servers are stricter.
This tool shrinks the file by redrawing every page as a compressed image, and it does that in your tab. Portfolios, résumés with signed pages and scanned contracts are exactly the files you'd hesitate to push through a random compression website.
How to compress a PDF
- Drop your PDF into the box above. You'll see its page count and current size in KB.
- Open Compression level and choose Smallest file, Balanced (recommended) or Best quality. Start with Balanced.
- Click "Compress PDF", compare the before and after sizes, then download.
Where the work happens
Each page gets painted onto a canvas in your browser, squeezed into a JPEG, and stitched into a new PDF at the original page dimensions. No server is involved at any step, which is why there's no upload bar and no queue.
Your original file is never modified. You get a separate download, so if the result looks too rough you can simply rerun it on a gentler level.
Watch out for what gets flattened
Every page becomes a picture. That means selectable text, search, links and form fields are gone from the output, and small print can look softer, particularly on Smallest file, which renders at 72 DPI with JPEG quality set to 45%. Balanced uses 108 DPI at 70%, and Best quality uses 144 DPI at 85%.
Scan-heavy or photo-heavy PDFs can drop by 80% or more. A text-only report, already tiny because fonts are compact, can actually come out bigger. Check the size comparison and keep the original if the new file isn't clearly smaller.
- No upload
- Your PDF is read and rebuilt locally in your browser — nothing is sent to a server.
- Image-based compression
- Pages are redrawn as compressed images, which works best on scanned or photo-heavy PDFs.
Questions
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends on what's inside. A scanned document or a photo-heavy portfolio often shrinks by 80% or more, since those pages are big images to begin with. A mostly-text report might barely change, or even grow.
Will the text stay sharp?
It'll look fine on Balanced or Best quality at normal zoom, but it's no longer real text. Every page is redrawn as a JPEG, so zooming in far enough shows softness, and Smallest file (72 DPI) is the blurriest of the three.
Can I still select and search the text afterward?
No. Because pages are rebuilt from images, selectable text, links and form fields don't survive. Keep your original if you need any of those, and send the compressed copy only where a flat, readable version is enough.
What gets sacrificed first?
Resolution and JPEG quality. Smallest file renders pages at 72 DPI with 45% quality, Balanced at 108 DPI and 70%, and Best quality at 144 DPI and 85%. Fine print and subtle gradients show the loss before anything else does.
What size do job portals and email usually allow?
Many application portals sit between 5 and 10 MB, and Gmail stops at 25 MB per message. Try Balanced first, check the size shown in the result, and step down to Smallest file only if you're still over the limit.
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Your browser redraws the pages and builds the new PDF on your device. Nothing is sent over the network, and the original file is left untouched.