Compress a PDF
Shrink scans and photo-heavy PDFs so they fit in an email or an upload form. Text-only PDFs change little.
Free, no sign-up. Up to 20 files and 40 MB at a time; files are processed in memory and never kept.
Other PDF jobs
Each opens its own page.
Drop a PDF here
or browse to choose one
Balanced or strong?
Balanced re-saves each photo or scanned page as a JPEG at quality 70 and scales it down to at most 2,000 pixels on its longest side, which still prints sharply. Strong uses quality 45 and 1,400 pixels: fine for reading on screen, a little soft on paper. Start with balanced and try strong only if the file is still too big.
Why a PDF barely shrinks
Text, vector drawings and embedded fonts are already compact, so a typed report changes little. Images that use transparency or a limited color palette are left as they are, because JPEG would spoil them. Pictures that are already small JPEGs have little left to give. Compress also removes duplicate copies of the same image or font. If the result wouldn't be smaller, you get your original file back, unchanged.
Make a scanned or photo-heavy PDF small enough to email, with the size before and after. No sign-up; files are never stored. The other PDF jobs (merge, split, compress, rotate, images to PDF and watermark) each have a page of their own.
How it works
- Add one PDF — Scans and photo-heavy PDFs shrink the most.
- Choose Balanced or Strong — Balanced still prints sharply; Strong is for reading on screen.
- Compress — The smaller PDF downloads, with its size before and after.
Examples
- A scanned form for an email — Compress a phone scan before attaching it to an email or an upload form with a size limit.
FAQ
- What do Balanced and Strong do? — Balanced re-saves photos and scanned pages as JPEG at quality 70, at most 2,000 pixels long; Strong uses quality 45 and 1,400 pixels.
- Why did my PDF barely shrink? — Text, drawings and fonts are already compact, and images with transparency or few colors are left as they are.
- Is the text changed? — No: only photos and scanned pages are re-saved; text stays text.