Tools › Documents › Compress PDF
Compress PDF
Make a PDF small enough to email or upload. The photos inside it are re-encoded and the text is left exactly as it was, so it can still be searched, copied and read aloud.
- Text stays text: pages are never turned into pictures
- A file only ever gets smaller; if it cannot, you get the original back
- Says what it did to every image, and why it left some alone
- Nothing uploaded, so no size limit, no queue and no watermark
As many as you like. Nothing is uploaded.
What makes a PDF big
Almost always the photographs inside it. A scanned page, a brochure, a slide deck exported with its pictures: each image is stored whole, often at the full resolution of the camera or scanner, which is several times more detail than any screen or printer will use at the size it appears on the page.
Text and drawings are the opposite. A page of text is a few kilobytes, so there is very little to gain there and a lot to lose.
Why the text is left alone
The quick way to shrink a PDF is to photograph every page and build a new file from the photos. It works, and the result can no longer be searched, copied, read by a screen reader or filled in, its links stop working, and small type goes soft. This tool only rewrites the images, so everything else in the file is the same bytes it was.
Which strength to pick
Balanced is the one to start with: most photo-heavy PDFs come out a third to a tenth of the size and nobody can tell. Strong is for getting under an upload limit, with photos visibly softer up close. Light keeps photos sharp enough for print and still trims the obvious excess.
What it will not touch
Images prepared for print (CMYK), pictures already stored losslessly, and a few unusual formats are left exactly as they were, and the result says how many. A password-protected PDF is refused by name, because it cannot be changed without the password.
Questions
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. It is read and rewritten in this tab. Nothing is sent anywhere, so there is no size limit and no queue.
Will the text still be searchable?
Yes. Only the images are re-encoded. The text, fonts, links and form fields are the same bytes as before.
Why did my file hardly shrink?
Because there was little to shrink: a PDF that is mostly text, or whose images are already compressed, or stored in a format this leaves alone. The result says which.
Can it make a file bigger?
No. An image is only replaced by a smaller one, and if the whole file would not come out smaller, you get the original back.
Does it work on scanned documents?
Yes, and that is where it helps most: a scan is one large picture per page.