Large PDFs are hard to email or upload to government and university portals. Compress PDF recompresses embedded images with carefully tuned quality and optimizes the file structure, while text stays selectable and searchable.
How to use it
- Choose one or more files.
- Pick a level: extreme, recommended, or less compression without quality loss.
- Click “Compress PDF” to see the size before and after and the savings, then download.
Features
- Three levels for printing or sharing.
- Text remains real text, never converted to an image.
- Compress several files at once.
- If a file is already optimized, we keep the original instead of making it bigger.
Why are some PDFs so large?
| Cause | What happens | Does compression help? |
|---|---|---|
| High-resolution scans | Each page is a full image, often over 1 MB | Yes, usually a lot |
| Camera photos inside the document | Images far sharper than a screen or printer needs | Yes |
| Text only, with embedded fonts | Already small | Limited |
Tips for the smallest file
- When scanning documents, 150–200 dpi is enough for reading and normal printing; 600 dpi multiplies the size for no benefit.
- Merge first, then compress the final file once.
- Start with “Recommended”; only switch to “Strong” if the file is still over the limit, then check that small numbers are still legible.
- Keep the original: strong compression is for sending, not archiving.
Privacy and security
“Compress PDF” runs entirely in your browser using trusted open-source libraries. Your files are never uploaded to a server and no copy is kept, so your documents stay private. It is free and needs no sign-up.
Tip: Scanned and image-heavy files shrink the most; pure text files are already small.