Compress PDF
Make a PDF smaller without changing how it looks.
When to use it
Use it when a PDF is too large to email or upload to a portal, especially scanned documents.
How it works
- Choose your files, or drop them onto the box above. You can add several at once.
- Lossless mode rewrites the file's internal structure and streams more efficiently. The image mode turns every page into a JPEG, which shrinks scans a lot but makes text unselectable.
- Press the Compress PDF button.
- Download the result, or add a next step without downloading.
Supported formats
- Input
- Output
- Files
- One or several; each file is processed on its own
Several results can be downloaded one by one or together as a ZIP.
Where your file goes
This tool runs in your browser: the file is processed on your device and is not uploaded. The Network tab of your browser's developer tools shows this.
What is kept, and what is not
Lossless mode keeps text, links, fonts and images exactly as they were. If the file cannot get smaller, you get the original back and the page says so — you never receive a bigger file.
Limits
- You cannot ask for an exact target size such as 200 KB. How much smaller the file gets depends on what is inside it.
- Files up to 512 MB each.
- PDF documents up to 5,000 pages.
- The work happens in your device's memory, so a phone may fail on a file that a computer handles.
If something goes wrong
The file did not get smaller
Lossless mode cannot shrink a file that is already compact; you get the original back. Try the image mode for scans, if selectable text does not matter.
The PDF asks for a password
Remove the password first with Unlock PDF (you need to know it), then try again.
The page becomes slow with a very large file
Close other tabs, or use a computer instead of a phone.
My file is not accepted
Check the formats listed above. A damaged file, or one with the wrong extension, is refused with a message saying why.
Questions
Which mode should I choose?
Lossless for documents with text you want to keep selectable; the image mode for scans and photo-heavy files where size matters most.
Will the PDF look different?
Not in lossless mode. In image mode every page becomes a picture, so text can no longer be selected or searched.
Continue with the result
The result can go straight into another tool on this page, without downloading it and uploading it again: