Compress PDF

Large PDF files cause headaches — email servers reject attachments over 10 MB, cloud storage fills up quickly, and slow file transfers waste time. The Compress PDF tool tackles this by reducing your PDF's file size significantly without requiring any desktop software.

PDF compression works by identifying and removing redundant data within the file. The primary technique is image downsampling: most PDFs contain embedded images saved at higher resolutions than a screen or printer needs. Our compressor resamples these images to an appropriate DPI, discards embedded ICC colour profiles that are rarely needed, and removes metadata artefacts. For text-heavy PDFs with few images, compression ratios are lower (10–30%), while image-heavy documents like scanned reports can shrink by 60–80%.

Compression levels explained:

• Low quality: Maximum file size reduction. Suitable for archiving or sharing previews where pixel-perfect sharpness is not required.
• Medium quality (recommended): Balanced reduction typically achieving 40–65% size savings. Images remain sharp at normal viewing distances and on screen.
• High quality: Conservative compression with minimal visual change. Best for print-ready files where image fidelity matters.

Unlike some tools that flatten all layers and strip interactive elements, our compressor retains hyperlinks, form fields, and annotations wherever possible. If you need to reduce size further after compression, consider also running the file through Remove PDF Pages to delete any blank or unnecessary pages, then re-compress.

After compression you may also want to password-protect your PDF before sending it to a recipient, especially for confidential documents.

Privacy: Your PDF is uploaded over an encrypted HTTPS connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically within 60 minutes. We process the file programmatically — no human ever reads your content. Compression is 100% free with no account needed.