How it works
- Drop or pick your PDF. The file stays on your device — nothing is uploaded.
- Choose a preset: Low keeps almost the original quality, Medium is the sweet-spot for email attachments, High squeezes the file as small as it’ll go.
- Click Compress. Your browser renders each page at the preset’s resolution and encodes it as JPEG at the preset’s quality, then reassembles a fresh, smaller PDF.
- Check the before/after sizes, then download.
Which preset should I pick?
| Preset | Render scale | JPEG quality | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low compression | 2.0× | 92% | Client-ready contracts, archive-quality, print. Modest 20–40% savings. |
| Medium (recommended) | 1.5× | 75% | Email attachments, forms, invoices, everyday sharing. 50–70% savings. |
| High compression | 1.0× | 55% | Fitting a stubborn upload limit, WhatsApp messages, quick previews. 80%+ savings possible. |
If Medium isn’t small enough, run the output through the tool again at High — a two-pass compress often shrinks further with only a small quality hit on the second pass.
What sizes to expect
- Scanned documents. Scanned pages are stored as high-res images inside the PDF — these compress the most, often 70–85% smaller at Medium.
- Screenshots and exported reports. Also image-heavy; expect 50–70% savings.
- Word / Google Docs exports. Mostly vector text; smaller absolute savings (20–40%) but still worthwhile.
- Already-compressed PDFs. Bank statements and boarding passes are often already optimised. Savings can be small (5–15%) — and rarely, the compressed version may end up slightly larger than the original. In that case the tool tells you.
Privacy & how your data is handled
- Nothing is uploaded. The tool runs 100% inside your browser tab.
- Nothing is stored. When you close the tab or refresh, the PDF is gone from memory.
- Nothing is logged. No network calls during processing — you can disconnect Wi-Fi after loading the page and the tool still works.
- Open source under the hood. Powered by Mozilla PDF.js and jsPDF, two widely-audited MIT-licensed libraries.
Trade-offs to know
- Output is a page-as-image PDF. The tool rebuilds each page as a compressed JPEG, so the resulting PDF is not text-selectable. Layout and visual quality are preserved; the underlying text stream is not.
- Large PDFs take longer. A 100-page PDF at Medium can take 30–60 seconds. The progress bar tracks it.
- Password-protected PDFs aren’t supported here. Unlock the PDF first with our Remove PDF Password tool, then come back to compress the unlocked file.
FAQ
How much smaller will my PDF get?
Most user-generated PDFs (scanned documents, screenshots, exported reports) shrink 50–80% at the Medium preset. Text-only PDFs already compressed by their creator (like bank statements) may only shrink 10–30%. Try the High preset for the smallest possible size.
Is my PDF actually uploaded?
No. Everything runs inside your browser tab. Your PDF is read from your device, compressed in JavaScript, and returned as a download — nothing is transmitted to any server. You can disconnect Wi-Fi after the page loads and it still works.
Which preset should I pick?
Medium is the sweet-spot for most cases — 50–70% smaller with near-original clarity, good enough for email or upload. Pick Low if you need to keep every pixel of quality (final print). Pick High if you need to fit under a 5 MB email attachment limit or similar — the text will be slightly softer but still readable on screen.
Why isn’t the output text-selectable?
To keep the tool 100% browser-based (no upload) and universally handle any PDF, the tool rasterises each page at the chosen resolution and reassembles it as a fresh PDF. That preserves the visual layout perfectly for viewing / printing / sharing but loses the underlying text stream. For text-preserving compression you’d need a native desktop tool.
Can I compress a password-protected PDF?
Not directly — unlock it first with our Remove PDF Password tool, then upload the unlocked file here. Both tools run in your browser without uploading.
My compressed file is bigger than the original. What happened?
This can happen on tiny already-optimised PDFs (say, a 200 KB bank statement). Rasterising and re-encoding adds JPEG overhead that dominates when there’s little to compress. In that case, keep the original — the tool tells you when this happens.
Do I need to install anything?
No install, no signup, no account. Open the page in any modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) and it works.