Compress a PDF without uploading it
Smaller file, same pages. The pictures inside are re-encoded and the file repacked; text stays selectable, links keep working, and nothing leaves your computer.
Runs in your browser. Your file never leaves your computer.
- Typical resultScans and photo-heavy files shrink most
- TextStays selectable and searchable
- Our defaultPictures at most 1600 px, quality 75
- PrivacyThe PDF never leaves your computer
Most PDFs that are too big to email are big for one reason: the pictures inside them. A scanned contract, a brochure with photos or a report with screenshots often carries images at print resolution when the reader only ever sees them on a screen. Compress re-encodes those pictures at a sensible size and quality, rewrites the file with tighter packaging, and leaves everything else exactly as it was: the text is still text you can select and search, the links still work, the page layout does not move. It happens inside your browser, so a payslip or a signed agreement is never sent to anyone.
What actually gets smaller
A PDF is a container. Text, fonts, vector drawings and page instructions are usually a few hundred kilobytes even for a long document. Pictures are the rest, and a phone photo dropped into a report can be 4 MB on its own, stored at 4000 pixels wide when the page will show it at 600. Compress finds those pictures, resizes any that are larger than the limit you set, and re-encodes them as JPEG at the quality you choose.
The result depends entirely on what is inside. A scanned document, which is one large picture per page, often drops to a fifth of its size. A brochure with a dozen photos loses most of its weight. A text-only contract barely changes, because there is nothing to compress, and the page will hand back the original and say so rather than pretend.
Which settings to pick
The default limits pictures to 1600 pixels on their longest side at JPEG quality 75. On a screen that is indistinguishable from the original, and it prints acceptably on an office printer. Keep it for anything you are emailing, uploading to a portal or attaching to a form.
Raise the size limit to 2400 pixels, or leave pictures at their original size, when the PDF will be printed professionally or when the pictures are the point, such as a photo book or a plan drawing where fine detail matters. Lower the quality towards 60 when the file simply has to fit under a hard limit and the pictures are only there for reference. Both controls sit under More options.
What it leaves alone, and when to use Shrink instead
Pictures with transparency, unusual colour spaces or the newer JPEG 2000 encoding are left as they are, because re-encoding them would risk changing how the page looks. A file made only of those may not get smaller, and the page tells you when nothing was gained.
If the file is still too large after compressing, the heavier option is Shrink, which turns each page into one picture at screen resolution. That cuts scans and image-heavy documents down hard, but the text stops being selectable and searchable, so it is for sharing a copy, not for keeping the document. Compress first; reach for Shrink only when the size limit leaves no choice.
How to do it
Drop the PDF on the box above, click the box to choose it, or paste it. The page checks the file, reports its page count, and selects Compress as the suggested action. If you want a different picture size or quality, open More options and set them.
Press Compress, choose where to save, and the work runs on your machine; a 50-page scan takes a few seconds on a laptop. The job line reports the new size next to the old one. If nothing inside could be made smaller, you get the original back with a note saying so, and no time is wasted on a file that was already as small as it gets.
Questions
Will the text still be selectable after compressing?
Yes. Compress only touches the pictures inside the file. Text, fonts, links, bookmarks and form fields are copied through unchanged, so the PDF still searches, selects and prints as before.
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends on what is inside. Scans and photo-heavy files often drop to a fifth or a tenth of their size; a text-only document hardly changes, and the page says so rather than handing you a file that is no smaller.
Is my PDF uploaded to compress it?
No. The file is read and rewritten inside your browser and the result is saved straight to your disk. That is why it is safe for contracts, medical letters and anything else you would not hand to a website.
Why did I get the original back?
Because nothing inside could be made smaller without changing how the pages look. Pictures with transparency or unusual colour are left alone on purpose. For a hard size limit, use Shrink, which rasterises the pages at the cost of selectable text.
Related conversions
Shrink is the heavier option when Compress is not enough. Split and Extract pages help when only part of the document needs to be sent.
- Shrink PDFPages become images at screen resolution: scans collapse in size, text stops being selectable. The blunt tool, used knowingly.
- Split PDFEvery page becomes its own one-page PDF, text and links intact, delivered together as one ZIP.
- PDF to DOCXThe text layer rebuilt as an editable Word document. Honest limits: columns are best effort, scans need OCR.
- PDF to MarkdownThe text layer as structured plain text: headings and lists recovered where the layout permits.
- PDF to TXTThe text layer, page after page, with no markup at all: the rawest useful form of a document.
- PDF to PNGEvery page rendered at the resolution you pick, delivered together as a ZIP. Scans welcome here.
Part of convert documents in your browser. Every other conversion is on the conversions index.