PDF Compressor

Shrink a PDF's file size for easier sharing and uploading — adjust the compression level and download the result.

Click to upload or drag and drop a PDF

About the PDF Compressor

Large PDF files are one of the most common headaches when sharing documents — email attachment limits, slow uploads, and portals that reject anything over a certain size. This tool reduces a PDF's file size by re-rendering each page at your chosen compression level, giving you a smaller, easier-to-share file in seconds, without needing desktop software or a paid subscription.

Key Features

  • Adjustable compression levels. Choose Light, Medium, or Strong compression depending on how much you're willing to trade quality for file size.
  • Before/after size comparison. See exactly how much space you're saving before you download.
  • Works entirely offline once loaded. Your file is processed locally — no upload to any server.
  • No account or watermark. Compress as many files as you like.

How to Use the PDF Compressor

  1. Upload your PDF by clicking the box or dragging the file in.
  2. Choose a compression level — Light for minimal quality loss, Strong for the smallest possible file.
  3. Click Compress PDF and review the before/after file size.
  4. Click Download Compressed PDF to save the result.

How It Works

This tool uses PDF.js to render each page of your PDF onto a canvas at a resolution based on your chosen compression level, then re-encodes each page as a compressed JPEG image and rebuilds the document as a new PDF using jsPDF. This approach can significantly reduce file size, especially for image-heavy or scanned PDFs.

Important: Because this method re-renders each page as an image, any selectable text in your original PDF will become part of a flattened image in the compressed version — it will look the same, but text will no longer be selectable or searchable. This tool is best suited for image-heavy PDFs and scanned documents rather than text-heavy files where you need to keep the text selectable.

Common Use Cases

  • Email attachments. Get a large PDF under your email provider's size limit.
  • Scanned documents. Shrink bulky scanned paperwork before archiving or sharing.
  • Form uploads. Meet file size requirements on portals and application forms.
  • Faster sharing. Send documents over slow connections without long upload waits.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will my PDF's text still be selectable afterward? No — see the note above. This tool flattens each page into a compressed image, which is ideal for scanned or image-heavy PDFs but not for text documents where selectable text matters.

How much smaller will my file get? It depends heavily on the original content — image-heavy PDFs typically shrink the most, while already-compact, text-only PDFs may see smaller gains.

Is there a page or size limit? No fixed limit, though very large PDFs will take longer to process depending on your device.

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