Compress PDF
Make a PDF smaller three ways — repack it, shrink only the pictures and keep the text, or squeeze scans as JPEGs. Several files at once. Free, no upload.
Drop a PDF here or click to browse
🔒 Everything runs in your browser — your PDF is never uploaded.
Make a PDF smaller
Drop in a PDF — or several at once — and choose one of three ways to shrink it. Keep the text sharp is the default: the file is re-packed without a single page being re-drawn, so text stays selectable and searchable, links keep working and pictures keep their quality. How much that saves depends entirely on the file, so the tool actually does it the moment your PDF lands and shows you the real before-and-after — for example 8.4 MB → 6.1 MB (−27%) — instead of promising a percentage it cannot deliver. If your PDF is already packed as tightly as this method can pack it, it says so rather than handing you a bigger file.
Shrink the pictures, keep the text is the middle way, and on a scan or a photo-heavy report it is usually the one you want. The page itself is never re-drawn — every word stays selectable and searchable, links and bookmarks keep working — but the pictures inside are re-encoded: held down to a resolution you choose and stored as JPEGs at a quality you choose, with an option to drain the colour out of them as they go. On a document whose weight is almost all pictures that is the large saving, and it costs you nothing that a reader can see in the text. A picture already small enough for the resolution you asked for, or one JPEG cannot beat, is left exactly as it was, and the tool says how many it re-encoded and how many it left alone.
Squeeze scans hard is the last resort: every page is re-drawn as a picture of itself and stored as a JPEG, at a photo quality (30–95%, default 70%) and a level of detail you pick — 72, 96, 150, 200, 300 or 600 dpi, or any number you type in, at 150 by default. That is where the biggest savings on scanned files come from, but the text becomes part of the picture, so it can no longer be selected, searched or copied. While you move the sliders a live preview squeezes one real page and shows it next to the original, reports what that page came out at, and projects what the whole file will weigh — including a warning when squeezing would make a text-only document bigger.
Several files, optional strips, locked PDFs
Drop in as many PDFs as you like. Every file gets exactly the same treatment, one before-and-after total is reported for the lot, and they come back as a single zip. The first two methods also let you tick off parts of the file you do not need in the copy you are about to send — Metadata, Attached files, Page thumbnails, Video, sound and 3D, Bookmarks, and Comments and form fields. None of those re-draws a page either; attachments in particular are often the single heaviest thing in a PDF. The list is not offered under Squeeze scans hard, which builds a new document out of pictures of the pages and so has none of the old structure left in it to take out. If the file is locked, type its password and it is compressed unlocked. Everything runs entirely in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
What quality level should I choose?
The photo-quality slider belongs to "Squeeze scans hard" and runs from 30 to 95%, defaulting to 70%. Lower values shrink the file more but introduce visible JPEG artifacts; 60–70% is a good balance for scanned documents, while 80–90% keeps photos crisp at a smaller saving. The preview re-squeezes a real page as you drag, so you can judge it before you download.
Why is my compressed PDF larger than the original?
Some PDFs — especially text-only or already-optimized files — are smaller than a JPEG rendering of the same pages. You are told before you commit: in "Keep the text sharp" the measured result appears on screen, and in "Squeeze scans hard" the projection from the previewed page warns you that the whole file would end up bigger, with the suggestion to switch modes or lower the quality.
Why did my file not get smaller?
Some PDFs are already packed as tightly as repacking can pack them — anything exported by a modern tool often is. Rather than hand you a bigger file and let you find out afterwards, the tool re-packs your PDF the moment you drop it in, measures the result for real, and tells you plainly that there is no saving on this one. If the pages are scans or photos, switch to "Shrink the pictures, keep the text" or "Squeeze scans hard", which work on exactly the files repacking cannot help.
Can I compress several PDFs at once?
Yes. Drop in as many as you like: the settings and the preview are shown for the first one, every file gets exactly the same treatment, and the results come back as a single zip with one before-and-after total. Only the first file can be asked for a password, so a locked PDF further down the list is left out of the download and has to be compressed on its own.
Can I keep the text selectable and still shrink a scan?
That is what the middle method, "Shrink the pictures, keep the text", is for. The page is never re-drawn, so every word stays selectable and searchable and the links and bookmarks keep working; only the pictures inside are re-encoded, down to the resolution and quality you set, and optionally in grey. On a scan or a photo-heavy report almost all the weight is in those pictures, so the saving is large and the text layer survives it.