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Compress PDF Online — Reduce PDF File Size up to 80%_

Shrink a PDF for email attachments and upload limits in one click. Pick a quality level and watch the size drop — free, no upload, no watermark, no sign-up.

🔒 Your files never leave your device — 100% private, processed locally in your browser
Merge PDF Files
📂
Drop PDF files here or click to browse
Add as many PDFs as you need · drag to reorder
✓ MERGE COMPLETE
Split PDF
📄
Drop a PDF here or click to browse
Upload a PDF to see page count
✓ SPLIT COMPLETE
Compress PDF
⚡
Drop a PDF here or click to browse
Reduce file size by up to 80%
✓ COMPRESSION COMPLETE
Before
After
PDF → JPG / PNG
🖼
Drop a PDF here or click to browse
Convert every page to a high-quality image
✓ CONVERSION COMPLETE
Image → PDF
📷
Drop images here or click to browse
JPG, PNG, WebP supported · drag to reorder
✓ PDF CREATED
Rotate, Reorder & Delete Pages
⊞
Drop a PDF here or click to browse
Drag thumbnails to reorder · rotate or delete pages
✓ PDF SAVED
✓
Reduce PDF size by 50–80%Scanned and image-heavy documents shrink dramatically. A 10 MB scan commonly lands under 2 MB.
✓
Hit an email attachment limitClear the 25 MB Gmail cap or a stricter 10 MB corporate limit without splitting the document up.
✓
Adjustable quality, not a fixed presetThree levels so you can trade sharpness against size deliberately instead of accepting one guess.
✓
Get a scan under 1 MB for upload formsHigh compression for portals and application forms that enforce tight per-file limits.
✓
Nothing is uploadedCompression runs in your browser, so contracts, payroll and medical scans never leave the machine.
✓
No watermark, no daily capCompress as many documents as you like. Nothing is stamped on the output and no account is needed.
Why Compress a PDF Here?

What actually makes a PDF large. It is nearly always page images. A document scanned at 300 dpi stores a full photograph of every sheet, which is why a ten-page scan reaches 20 MB while the same text exported from Word sits under 200 KB. Compression works by re-rendering those page images at a lower resolution and re-encoding them, which is where the 50–80% saving comes from.

The trade-off you are making. Because pages are rasterised, text stops being text. The document looks identical but you can no longer select, copy or search it, and screen readers cannot read it. Every compressor that gets large reductions on scans does this, paid ones included. Compress a copy and keep the original if the text layer matters.

When compression will not help. A PDF exported straight from Word, Google Docs or LaTeX is already compact — mostly text and vector shapes with nothing wasteful to remove. Expect single-digit percentage savings on those, and do not read that as a failure. If your text-only PDF refuses to shrink, it was already efficient.

About · FAQ · How it works

Compress PDF Online — Reduce File Size Without Losing Readability

A PDF is usually large for one specific reason: it contains page images from a scanner or phone camera, often at 300 dpi or higher, stored with little compression. A ten-page scan can easily reach 20 MB while the same document exported from Word is under 200 KB. This compressor re-renders each page at a resolution you choose and re-encodes it, which is what actually shrinks the file. Typical results are 50–80% smaller for scans and image-heavy reports, and very little for text-only PDFs that were already efficient. Everything runs in your browser, so confidential contracts and medical records never leave your device.

How to Compress a PDF — Common Situations

Get a PDF under the 25 MB Gmail attachment limit

Gmail rejects attachments over 25 MB, Outlook.com over 20 MB, and many corporate mail servers cut off at 10 MB. Drop the file in, start at the medium quality setting, and check the resulting size shown next to the download button. A 40 MB scanned contract typically lands between 4 and 8 MB at medium, which clears every common limit. If you are still over, step the quality down one notch rather than two — each step costs visible sharpness on small text.

Get a scanned document below 1 MB for an upload form

Government portals, job application forms and insurance uploads frequently cap files at 1 or 2 MB. This is the aggressive end of compression. Use the lowest quality setting and expect the page to look noticeably softer when zoomed past 100%. For a text document this is usually still perfectly legible at normal reading size. If a form insists on 500 KB for a multi-page scan, consider splitting it and uploading the pages separately instead of destroying the quality.

Compress a photo-heavy report or portfolio

Reports full of charts, screenshots and photographs compress extremely well because the images dominate the file size. A 60 MB portfolio often drops under 10 MB with no practical loss for on-screen viewing. If the PDF is destined for print rather than email, stay at the highest quality setting — print output at 300 dpi will show artefacts that a monitor hides.

Understand what compression does to your text

This is the trade-off worth knowing before you start. The compressor rasterises each page, meaning text becomes part of an image rather than remaining as characters. The document looks the same, but afterwards you cannot select, copy or search the text, and a screen reader can no longer read it. If you need the text layer intact — for accessibility, for a legal filing, or because someone downstream needs to copy from it — compress a copy and keep the original.

Frequently Asked Questions — Compressing PDFs

How much smaller will my PDF actually get?

It depends almost entirely on what is inside it. Scanned documents and photo-heavy files typically shrink by 50–80%, because the page images are the bulk of the file and re-encoding them saves a great deal. A PDF exported from Word, Google Docs or LaTeX that contains only text and vector graphics may barely shrink at all — sometimes under 10% — because it was already compact. If your 300 KB text PDF will not get smaller, that is not a fault: there is simply nothing left to remove.

Why can I no longer select or search the text after compressing?

Because compression works by re-rendering each page as an image. The visual result is identical, but the underlying text characters are replaced by pixels, so text selection, copy-paste, full-text search and screen-reader access all stop working. Every compressor that achieves large reductions on scanned documents does this, including the paid ones. If you need a searchable result, run OCR on the compressed file afterwards, or keep the original alongside it.

Can I compress to an exact target size, like exactly 2 MB?

Not in one click — no browser-based tool can hit an exact byte target on the first pass, because the final size depends on the image content of your specific pages. The practical method is to pick a quality level, look at the resulting size, and adjust once or twice. Two attempts almost always land you inside a target range. Starting at medium and moving one step in the needed direction is faster than guessing at the extremes.

Is there a file size limit on what I can compress?

There is no limit imposed by the tool. The real constraint is your device memory, since the whole document is processed in the browser tab. Files up to a few hundred megabytes are fine on a normal laptop. Very large files — think a 500-page colour scan — may be slow or may exhaust memory on a phone. If a huge file struggles, split it, compress the parts, and merge them back.

Does compressing damage the original file?

No. The original on your disk is never modified. The tool reads it, produces a new compressed file, and offers that as a download. Nothing is written back over your source document, and nothing is uploaded, so there is no version of your file anywhere except on your own machine.

My PDF is still huge after compressing. What went wrong?

Usually nothing went wrong — the file was already efficiently compressed. The other common cause is embedded fonts or attached files rather than images: a PDF carrying a full embedded font set, or with spreadsheets attached inside it, carries weight that image re-encoding cannot touch. Check whether the file is mostly text; if so, its size is largely irreducible without removing content.

Are my documents uploaded anywhere while compressing?

No. Processing runs entirely in your browser using pdf-lib and Mozilla’s PDF.js. No file is transmitted, so there is no server copy, no retention period and no privacy policy to rely on. You can verify this by opening your browser’s Network tab while compressing, or by disconnecting from the internet after the page loads — it keeps working.

Will the compressed PDF still print properly?

For office documents printed on a normal printer, yes at medium or high quality. For professional print work, be careful: rasterising at a low setting can produce visible softness or banding on a 300 dpi press that looks invisible on screen. If the file is going to a print shop, use the highest quality setting, or send the uncompressed original.