Compress PDF
Make your PDF smaller, for free
Compress PDF files for free, right in your browser. Make a PDF small enough to email or upload: pick Light, Recommended or Strong, and see the new size before you download.
How to compress a PDF
- 1Choose your PDF, or drop it onto the box.
- 2Pick Light, Recommended or Strong. Recommended suits most PDFs.
- 3Click Compress, then download the smaller PDF.
How the PDF gets smaller
Most of a large PDF's size is usually its pictures: photos, scans and screenshots. The compressor re-encodes those with MozJPEG, and at lower qualities also lowers the resolution of very large ones. Then QPDF rewrites the file itself, packing its objects together, re-compressing everything at the highest level and removing what isn't used.
Light runs only the lossless rewrite, so nothing in the PDF changes apart from its size. Recommended re-compresses the pictures and keeps them sharp; Strong makes the smallest file, with lower-quality pictures and, for print files, slightly different colours. Text stays sharp and selectable at every level.
What to expect
Scanned PDFs and PDFs full of photos usually shrink a lot. PDFs that are mostly text are already small, so they shrink less. If compressing doesn't make your PDF smaller, you keep the original.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a PDF smaller for email?
Pick Recommended and click Compress. If it's still too big, try Strong.
Will the text in my PDF still be selectable?
Yes. Only pictures are re-compressed; text, links and the layout stay the same.
Can I compress a password-protected PDF?
Not yet. Remove the password first, then compress the PDF.