Compress PDF
Make a PDF small enough to email or upload, without turning its text into a blurry picture.
or drop it here · up to 50 MB, free
Bigger files? Pro converts files up to 500 MBOver the free limits: you can unlock the download from €1.99.
Working on it…
Your file is ready
Free · No sign-up · No watermark · Your files never leave your device
Compress PDF in 3 steps
- Select your PDF, or drop it on the box.
- Choose a compression level, or a maximum size such as 1 MB.
- Click Compress PDF and download the smaller file.
What makes a PDF big, and what this tool does about it
Almost all the weight of a large PDF comes from photos and scans. A phone picture placed in a report keeps its 12 megapixels even when it is printed a few centimetres wide. The compressor finds every photo, works out how large it really appears on the page and scales it down to a sensible resolution: 220 DPI on Light, 150 DPI on Recommended and 100 DPI on Strong. If you pick a maximum size instead, such as Under 1 MB, it steps through stronger settings until the file fits. It then saves the photo again as an efficient JPEG and removes objects the document no longer uses.
Text, fonts, vector drawings, links and form fields are not touched, so the text stays sharp at any zoom and can still be searched and copied. A PDF that is mostly text is already small, so it shrinks only a little. If the file cannot be made smaller, you get your original back rather than a bigger copy.
Frequently asked questions
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends on what is inside. PDFs full of photos or scanned pages usually lose more than half of their size with the Recommended level, and more with Strong. Documents that are mostly text are already compact and shrink much less.
Will compressing make my PDF blurry?
Text and drawings stay exactly as they are, because only the photos are re-saved. On Recommended, photos keep 150 DPI, which looks sharp on screen and in normal prints. Choose Light if the PDF will be printed in high quality.
How do I compress a PDF to 1 MB, 500 KB or 200 KB?
Open the Compression menu and pick the size you need, such as Under 1 MB. The tool tries stronger settings until the file fits and keeps the best quality that does. 1 MB counts as 1,000,000 bytes, as upload forms do; for email, 20–25 MB is the usual limit. Text-heavy PDFs may not reach very small sizes; then remove pages or split the PDF.
Can I compress a scanned PDF?
Yes, and scans usually shrink the most, because every page is one large image. Scanning apps often save pages at 300 DPI or more; scaling them to 150 DPI keeps them readable while cutting the size by a large amount.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. Everything happens inside your browser on your own device, so contracts, statements and other private documents are never sent to us or stored anywhere. Once the page has loaded it keeps working even without an internet connection.