How to compress a PDF
- Drop your PDF into the box at the top of the page, or click it to browse.
- Pick a goal. “Smaller file” for everyday use, or an exact ceiling when a portal or an email server demands one. 100 KB, 200 KB, 500 KB, 1 MB, or anything you type in.
- Compress, then download. The tool shows you how much smaller the file got before you save it.
Compress to an exact target size
Most compressors hand you a quality slider and let you guess. That is useless when an application portal says "maximum file size: 200KB". Target mode runs the guessing for you, adjusting quality and resolution until it lands on the best-looking file that still fits under your limit. When the limit can't be met without rasterizing, you're told, and you choose rasterizing instead of discovering it afterwards.
Chasing one specific ceiling? Each common one has its own tool with the target already set: under 100 KB, under 200 KB, under 500 KB, or under 1 MB.
What gets compressed
Almost all the weight in an oversized PDF is photographs and scans sitting there at full camera resolution. Those get decoded, scaled down to a sensible size, and re-encoded, and then the PDF is rebuilt with a tighter internal structure. Text, fonts, form fields, and vector graphics pass straight through. That's why standard mode never costs you selectable text. The re-encoding is JPEG-family compression, whose failure mode is visible softness, never the silent character substitution that once made scanners rewrite numbers.
Common uses for compressing PDFs
- Shrink for email: get a large scan under the mailbox attachment limit.
- Compress a photo-heavy PDF: a portfolio or brochure, smaller, with nothing visibly lost.
- Meet an upload cap: fit the document under whatever maximum a portal is enforcing.
- Reduce a scanned document: cut a bulky scan down to something shareable.
Frequently asked questions
How does the compression work?
It finds the images embedded in your PDF, re-encodes them at a more sensible size, and rebuilds the document around them, the same approach the professional server tools take. Text, fonts, and vector graphics come through untouched, because only image data is recompressed.
Can I compress to an exact size, like under 200KB?
That's the feature the tool is built around. Pick “Under 100 KB / 200 KB / 500 KB / 1 MB” or type a custom size, and the quality search runs until it finds the best-looking file that fits.
What if my PDF won't reach the target?
Some documents simply can't get that small while keeping real text. Extreme mode handles those by turning each page into a compressed image. It hits almost any target. The cost, stated up front, is that the text stops being selectable.
Will my text stay sharp and selectable?
In standard mode text and vector content are never touched, so yes. Only Extreme mode rasterizes pages, and it's off until you turn it on.
Why did my file barely shrink?
A PDF with no images in it is pure text and vectors, which is already about as small as lossless compression gets. There's nothing left to take. Tools that promise huge savings on files like that are usually rasterizing them without saying so.
Is my PDF uploaded to be compressed?
No. The whole job happens on your own machine, which is also why there are no size caps or daily limits to work around.