How to compress a PDF
- Choose your PDF, or drag it onto the box above.
- Pick how much to shrink it. Recommended works for most files.
- Select Compress PDF. You'll see how much smaller it got, and the new file downloads.
Questions
Which level should I pick?
Light looks practically the same as the original. Recommended stays sharp on any screen and usually cuts scans and photo-heavy files by 70–90%. Strong gives the smallest file, but photos get noticeably softer, so check it before you submit.
Will my text get blurry?
No. Typed text, lines and shapes stay sharp at every level. Compression mostly shrinks photos and scanned pages, which is where the file size comes from.
Why didn't my PDF get smaller?
PDFs that are mostly typed text are already tiny, so there's little to remove. In that case we tell you instead of downloading a file that isn't any smaller.
What happens to my file?
Compressing well needs Ghostscript, which can't run in a browser, so the file is sent to our server over an encrypted connection. It's compressed immediately and both copies are deleted as soon as your download starts. Nothing is stored or read.