Compress PDF
Make a PDF smaller for email and upload limits. Photos and scans are shrunk; text stays sharp.
How to compress a PDF
- Drop one or more PDFs onto the box above, or click it to choose them.
- Pick how hard to compress. “Recommended” suits email and upload forms; “Strong” makes the smallest files for scanned documents full of photos.
- Click “Compress”. The smaller PDF downloads when it’s ready, and you’ll see how much space you saved.
Everything happens in this browser tab. Nothing is uploaded, and closing the tab clears it all.
Questions
How does it make PDFs smaller?
Most of a PDF’s size is usually photos and scans. The tool shrinks and re-compresses those images, then repacks the file more efficiently. Text, fonts, and drawings are left as they are, so they stay sharp and searchable.
Are my PDFs uploaded?
No. Compression happens in your browser, on your device. Your documents are never sent to a server, which makes it safe for contracts, bank statements, and IDs.
Why did my PDF barely shrink?
PDFs that contain mostly text are already small and efficient, so there is little to remove. Scanned documents and PDFs with many photos shrink the most. If the result would be bigger, you get your original file back.
Can I compress a password-protected PDF?
Unlock it first with the Unlock PDF tool, compress it, and then protect it again with Protect PDF if you need to.
More tools
- Merge PDFsCombine several PDFs into one, in the order you choose.
- Images to PDFTurn photos and screenshots into a single PDF.
- Split PDFSplit into single pages or ranges, or extract pages.
- Organize PDFReorder, rotate, and delete pages by dragging.
- Remove PDF pagesDelete pages you don’t need from a PDF.
- Add page numbersNumber every page, with your choice of position and style.
- Protect PDFLock a PDF with a password (256-bit AES).
- Unlock PDFRemove a PDF’s password, when you know it.
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- PDF to WordGet an editable Word document from a PDF.
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- JPG to WordTurn a photo of text into an editable Word document.
- PDF to JPGSave PDF pages as JPG or PNG images.
- Extract text (OCR)Copy the text out of scanned PDFs and photos.
- QR code generatorMake a QR code for a link, text, or WiFi network.
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- Video to MP3Pull the audio track out of a video file.
- Trim videoCut a video down to the part you need.
- Trim audioCut an MP3 or voice recording to the part you need.