Compress PDF
Re-encode pages as images to shrink file size · Pick another PDF tool from the left menu
1. Choose a PDF
2. Options
⚠️ Each page is re-encoded as an image — scanned/photo PDFs shrink a lot, but text PDFs lose searchable, selectable text and may even get larger.
3. Run
Everything runs inside your browser — neither files nor passwords ever leave it. For AI summaries and Q&A, use PDF Intelligence.
Merge, split, and compress PDFs in your browser, or add page numbers and passwords. Files are never sent to a server.
What you can do
- ✓Merge · extract pages · split into single pages
- ✓Add page numbers
- ✓Compression (image re-encoding)
- ✓Password protect and unlock (qpdf)
How to use
- 1Pick a tool on the left
- 2Upload a PDF and set the options
- 3Run it and download the result
Supported formats · PDF
Shrink PDFs made of scans or photos. Each page is re-rendered and saved as a JPEG, which works well for scanned and photo-heavy documents but is the wrong tool for text-only PDFs. Check which kind you have first and the result won't disappoint.
How to use it
- 1Select or drop the PDF to compress.
- 2Choose a compression level. Start with Standard, check the resulting size, then move to Strong or Light as needed.
- 3Download the compressed PDF and compare its size with the original.
Which PDFs benefit
Documents whose pages are essentially images: contracts, receipts, and ID copies from a multifunction scanner, reports built from photos, or camera shots bundled into a PDF. Pages in such files often weigh several megabytes each, and lowering resolution and JPEG quality usually brings them down a lot.
The most common reason to use it is hitting an email attachment limit (typically 10–25 MB) or an upload cap on a submission site.
Don't use it on text PDFs
This tool redraws every page and stores it as a JPEG image. On a text PDF exported from Word or a similar editor, the letters become pixels: search, copy, and selection stop working, and a file that was small can actually grow.
Large text PDFs are usually large because of embedded fonts or high-resolution inserted images. Those are better fixed at export time. Think of this tool as being for scanned and photo PDFs only.
Choosing a level
There are three levels. Strong renders at the original size with 50% JPEG quality and gives the smallest file; Standard uses 1.5× resolution at 70% quality; Light uses 2× resolution at 85% quality and preserves the most detail.
Scans with small print can get blurry at Strong, so try Standard first, zoom into the result to make sure it is still readable, and only then decide whether to go smaller. The original is untouched, so you can try as many times as you like.
Frequently asked questions
Will the text get blurry?+
On scans, higher levels blur slightly. Start with Standard and zoom into the result before deciding. Text PDFs turn into images, so this tool is not suited to them.
Is the document sent to a server?+
No. Re-rendering and saving all happen inside your browser.
Can it get my file under an email attachment limit?+
For scanned or photo PDFs, usually yes. The output size is shown on screen, so adjust the level and retry until it fits.
Search and copy stopped working after compression.+
That is expected: pages become images. If you need searchable text, run the compressed file through the Scanned PDF OCR tool to add a text layer back.
The file got bigger.+
Common with text-heavy PDFs. Turning already-small vector text into images increases size. Such files are better left uncompressed.
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