Compress PDF
Choose a compression level and it shrinks your PDF's size — most effective on a scanned or photographed PDF; a text-only file is already small.
How to compress a PDF
- Add the PDF you want to compress.
- Choose a compression level — more compression means a smaller file but slightly blurrier images.
- Click "Compress PDF" and download the result, comparing the before/after size right in the list.
Frequently asked questions
A PDF that is a photographed or scanned page (usually large since it is really an image) compresses the most. A PDF that is just typed text is already small, so there is not much left to reduce.
No. This method turns each page into an image to shrink it, so any real, selectable text in the original becomes unselectable after compressing — skip compressing a file like that if you need to keep its text selectable.
If compressing would not make the file smaller, the tool keeps the original file for download instead of handing back a pointlessly bigger "compressed" copy.
Yes, a higher compression level trades a little image detail for a smaller file — choose "High quality" if you would rather not see that blur.
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