Compress a PDF
This works by re-encoding the pictures inside a PDF at a lower resolution and quality. It is the only thing that meaningfully shrinks most files.
How much it saves depends entirely on what is in the document. A scanned contract full of page images can drop a long way; a text document that is already efficient will barely move, and the tool tells you that instead of pretending otherwise.
Questions
- Are my files uploaded?
- No. Everything happens inside your browser tab — the file is read from your disk, worked on in memory, and saved back to your disk. It is never sent to us or to anyone else, and there is no server here that could receive it. You can confirm it yourself: open your browser's developer tools, look at the Network tab, and run any tool. No request carries your file.
- How much smaller will my file get?
- It depends on the file and nobody can promise a figure. Scans and image-heavy documents often drop a lot; a text-only PDF may shrink by a few percent or not at all, because there are no images in it to re-encode. The tool shows the true before and after sizes either way.
- Why did my file barely shrink?
- Almost certainly because it is mostly text. Text in a PDF is already stored compactly, and there is nothing this tool can do about it without turning your text into pictures, which would make the file worse to read and often larger.
- Will the text still be selectable?
- Yes. Only the images are touched; text and vector graphics are left exactly as they are.
- Which setting should I use?
- "Good for email" is the safe default. "Smallest" is worth it when the document is a scan you only need to be readable. On an image-heavy document the strongest setting is visibly softer, and the tool warns you before you use it.