Compress PDF
âšī¸ How it works:
- Upload your PDF file
- Pick a compression level with the slider
- Download the smaller PDF instantly
Reduce PDF File Size Online for Free
Shrink large PDFs so they're easy to email, upload, or store. Our compressor downsamples and re-compresses the images inside your PDF and subsets fonts, while keeping text and vector graphics perfectly sharp. Choose how much to compress with a single slider, and download the smaller file. No sign-up and no watermarks.
How to Compress a PDF
- Click the upload area above or drag and drop your PDF (up to 10 MB).
- On the next screen, set the compression level — lower for the smallest file, higher to keep more image detail.
- Compress and download your PDF.
Compression Levels
- Maximum compression – images downsampled to ~72 DPI; smallest file, best for screen viewing and email
- High / medium – images around 100–150 DPI; a good balance of size and clarity
- Light compression – images around 200 DPI; keeps more detail for print-quality documents
Key Features
- Sharp text – text and vector graphics stay crisp; only embedded images are recompressed
- Adjustable level – trade size against image quality with one slider
- Image downsampling – large embedded photos are scaled down and re-compressed
- Font subsetting – embeds only the glyphs the document actually uses
- Never bigger – if compression wouldn't help, you get your original file back unchanged
When to Compress PDFs
- Sending PDFs as email attachments with size limits
- Uploading documents to web forms or portals that restrict file size
- Archiving large collections of scanned documents
- Sharing reports and presentations via messaging apps
- Cutting storage costs for cloud-hosted PDFs
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the content. PDFs full of large images or scans can often shrink by 50–80%. Text-heavy PDFs are already small, so the savings are more modest (often 10–30%).
No. Text and vector graphics stay perfectly sharp — only embedded raster images are recompressed, and you control how much with the level slider.
If compressing wouldn't actually reduce the size (common with text-only or already-optimized PDFs), the tool simply returns your original file unchanged so you never end up with a larger document.
Yes. Compression is completely free with no sign-up and no watermark, and you can upload PDFs up to 10 MB. Files are processed for your download and not shared.
Related PDF Tools
- Merge PDF – combine several PDFs into one
- Split PDF – pull out pages or split into parts
- Rotate PDF – fix the orientation of pages
- PDF to Image – export pages as images
- PDF to Word – convert a PDF to an editable document