Compress a PDF
Shrink a PDF that is too big for an email attachment or an upload form.
How it works
- Upload one or more PDF files.
- Pick a quality preset, or open the Quality tab to set each option.
- Click Compress to start.
- One file comes back as a PDF; several come back as a single archive.
What this tool does to your file
Compression works on the images inside the PDF, which is where the bulk of a large file almost always is: they are re-encoded at the quality level you pick, and the page structure, text and fonts are left alone. Two cases are deliberately skipped rather than forced. An image carrying an alpha channel is left as it was, because re-encoding it to JPEG would flatten the transparency it was chosen for. So is any image whose re-encoded version comes out larger than the original — already-optimised artwork is left alone instead of being made worse. That means a text-only PDF, or one whose images are already compressed hard, will come back close to the size it went in at; there is nothing left to take out. Text stays selectable throughout, because nothing is rasterised. Up to 20 files per job.
What happens to your files
- No account needed — Every tool works as a guest. Signing in raises the limits and keeps your files together, but nothing asks you to register before you get a result.
- It runs in your browser — There is nothing to install and nothing to keep up to date. Files travel to our servers over an encrypted connection, and come back the same way.
- Your files stay yours — Files and results stay in your account until you delete them. Files from a guest session that is never linked to an account are removed automatically after a period of inactivity.
- Size limits, stated up front — Up to 10 MB per file as a guest, and up to 25 MB signed in. You see the limit before you upload, not after.