Compress

Shrink a PDF file

Best for scans and photo-heavy PDFs. Text will no longer be selectable in the result. Everything runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

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Upload a PDF
.pdf
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Choose a level

This works by turning each page into an image and recompressing it — the same trick that shrinks most large PDFs, which are usually scans or photos rather than plain text. The tradeoff: text in the output is no longer selectable or searchable. If you need the text to stay selectable, use Extract PDF Text instead of compressing, or don't compress a text-based PDF at all.

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Download

Common questions

Will my PDF text still be selectable after compressing?
No. This tool works by turning each page into a recompressed image, which is what actually shrinks a scan-heavy PDF — the tradeoff is that any selectable or searchable text in the original is not preserved in the output.
Should I use this on a PDF that is mostly typed text, not scans?
Probably not — a text-based PDF is usually already small, and this tool would make it larger and non-searchable for little size benefit. It is built for scans and photo-heavy documents, where most of the file size is images to begin with.
Which quality level should I pick?
Start with Balanced. Use High quality if the document has fine print or detail that needs to stay legible, and Smallest file only when you need the lowest possible size and can accept more visible compression.