Shrink a PDF that is too big to email or upload: a scanned lease, a photo-heavy listing or a school form full of pictures. You see what takes up space before you start and exactly how much smaller the file got.
Do it now in the free PDF editorOpens in your browser. No sign-up, no watermark — your PDF is never uploaded.
Click More in the toolbar and choose Compress PDF. The panel shows the file size and how much of it is images.
Pick Recommended, Smallest file, Best quality or Custom to set the image resolution and quality yourself.
Click Compress PDF. The smaller file is downloaded, and the panel shows the old and new size side by side.
See how it works
1Click More in the toolbar
2Choose Compress PDF
1The panel shows the size and how much of it is images
2Pick a compression level
3Compress PDF downloads the smaller file
The result: old and new size, and what was made smaller
What compression does
Scales down large images to the resolution you choose, based on the size they are shown on the page. A photo printed 3 inches wide keeps 450 pixels at 150 ppi, even if the camera saved 4,000.
Recompresses those images as JPEG with the chosen quality. An image is only replaced if it really gets smaller.
Merges duplicate images and fonts, such as a logo repeated on every page, so they are stored once.
Removes unused objects, hidden page thumbnails and private data that design apps store in the file, and packs the rest more tightly.
What is left as it is
Text and vector graphics are never turned into pictures. Images with transparency keep their mask, and black-and-white scans, CMYK print images and other special formats are left unchanged so their colors and edges stay exactly right.
Need the pages as pictures instead? Use PDF to JPG / PNG to save them as images.
Frequently asked questions
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends on what is inside. Scans and documents with photos often shrink by 70 to 95%, because their large images are scaled down. PDFs with only text, such as files saved from Word, are usually compact already and shrink much less. The panel shows how much of the file is images before you compress it.
Will the text stay sharp and searchable?
Yes. Only images are scaled and recompressed. Text, fonts, vector drawings, links, bookmarks and form fields are kept exactly as they are, so you can still select, search and copy the text.
What do Recommended, Smallest file and Best quality mean?
Recommended scales images to 150 ppi, which looks sharp on screen and in office prints. Smallest file uses 96 ppi with stronger JPEG compression, for strict email and upload limits. Best quality leaves every image untouched and only removes unused and duplicate data.
How do I get a PDF under 1 MB or another size limit?
Start with Recommended and check the new size in the panel. If it is still too big, try Smallest file, or choose Custom and lower the resolution to 72 ppi and the quality to about 50%. Each try takes only a few seconds.
Are my edits and signature kept?
Yes. The compressed file is made from the document as you see it in the editor, with your text, signatures, highlights, redactions, watermark, rotation and crop.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. Compression runs entirely in your browser, so your document never leaves your device, and the original file is not changed.
Ready to try it?Drop your PDF into the editor and download the result in seconds.
