Compress PDF
Reduce your PDF's file size — either by picking a quality level or by naming a target size and letting us find the best achievable setting.
🔒 Processed locally in your browser.
Drop a PDF here or click to select
70%
⚠
Compressing converts each page to an image, then rebuilds the PDF. Text becomes non-selectable.
If that matters, use our OCR PDF tool afterwards to add back a searchable layer.
Below 40% quality, small text may become blurry.
Below 40% quality, small text may become blurry.
Original — first page
Compressed — first page
How to compress a PDF
- Drop your PDF into the box above.
- Pick a quality level, or enter a target size (e.g., 500 KB).
- Optionally click Preview to see the first page before and after.
- Click Compress. For target mode, we try a range of qualities.
- Review the result — download if you're happy, or adjust and try again.
Technical limitations — read this
- Text becomes image. Our compression rasterizes each page. The result is smaller but text is no longer selectable. If you need searchable text, compress before running OCR, or compress a scan.
- Already-small files. If your PDF is mostly text, it might already be near-minimal. We'll tell you honestly when we can't compress further.
- Target sizes are goals, not guarantees. If your target is unreachable without destroying quality, we'll show you the best we achieved and let you decide.
- Multipage performance. Files with hundreds of pages may take a while — rasterizing is CPU-heavy.
Frequently asked
Can I keep text selectable?
Not with our current approach. If you need both smaller size and selectable text, compress first (to images), then run OCR PDF to rebuild a text layer.
Why is my PDF still large after compression?
Because it was already near its minimum. PDFs made of text-only content are small; there's little to trim.
Does target mode guarantee the size?
No. It searches for the best quality that meets the target. If unreachable, we tell you the best result we achieved — never fake it.
Is my file uploaded?
Never. Everything runs in your browser.