PDF Compressor

Shrink PDF file size.

Drop a PDF here or

How to use

  1. Drop a PDF or click browse to select one.
  2. Pick a mode. Optimize is safe for any PDF and preserves selectable text. Rasterize gives much bigger savings for image-heavy or scanned PDFs but loses text, links, and bookmarks.
  3. For Rasterize, adjust the DPI and JPG quality. Lower values mean smaller files.
  4. Click Compress, then Download.

What does it do?

The tool offers two compression modes. Optimize is lossless: it re-saves the PDF with object streams enabled, strips metadata like author and title, and removes unused objects. Savings are typically 5–30 percent depending on how wasteful the original was. Rasterize is lossy: every page is rendered to an image at your chosen DPI and JPG or WebP quality, then a new PDF is built from those images. Savings of 70–95 percent are common for scanned documents.

Example

Input — a 40-page scanned contract:

contract.pdf (scanned, 300 DPI)    18.4 MB

After Rasterize mode at 150 DPI, JPG quality 70:

contract-compressed.pdf (image pages)  2.1 MB  (−89%)

Input — a 12-page report with selectable text:

quarterly-report.pdf (text + charts)  860 KB

After Optimize mode:

quarterly-report-compressed.pdf  720 KB  (−16%)

Why is my PDF compression making the file bigger?

If the output is larger or equal to the input, one of these is usually the cause. Try switching modes or lowering the raster settings.

  • Source already optimized. Optimize on a PDF that was exported from a modern tool (Word, LaTeX, Chrome "Save as PDF") often has nothing left to strip. Expect near-zero savings.
  • Rasterizing text-heavy PDFs. A 200 KB text-only PDF turns into several MB of JPG pages in Rasterize mode. Text compresses far better than images — never rasterize a PDF that is mostly text.
  • DPI higher than the source. Rasterizing a 96-DPI scan at 300 DPI upsamples pixels without adding detail. Match or go below the source scan's DPI. Try 96 or 150 for most documents.
  • Quality set too high. JPG quality: 95 barely compresses at all. Start at 70, drop to 50 if pages still look acceptable. Text in scans becomes fuzzy below about 40.
  • WebP re-encoded as PNG. WebP is not embeddable in PDFs directly, so the tool re-encodes WebP pages as PNG during embedding. This can erase WebP's size advantage. Prefer JPG for photos and scanned text.
  • Encrypted PDF. Could not read PDF: encrypted means the file is password-protected. Remove the password in your PDF viewer first, then try again.

Is my data private?

Yes. We don't save the PDF you drop here, or the smaller one you download after compression. Nothing is stored, logged, or retained — everything is discarded as soon as you close or refresh the tab. There's no record on our side of what you compressed. Feel free to verify in your browser's developer tools.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my compressed PDF larger than the original?

That usually means the source PDF is already optimized — for example, a text-only document or a file that has already been compressed. In Rasterize mode, it can also happen if your chosen DPI is higher than the original image resolution, which upsamples the pages. Try Optimize mode first, or drop the DPI to 96 or 72 in Rasterize mode.

Will compression make my text unselectable or unsearchable?

Optimize mode keeps the text layer intact — you can still select, copy, and search. Rasterize mode converts each page into an image, so selectable text, hyperlinks, and form fields are lost. Use Rasterize only when file size matters more than text fidelity, such as for email attachments or upload limits.

Can this compress password-protected or encrypted PDFs?

No. Encrypted PDFs need to be unlocked before compression. Open the file in your PDF viewer, enter the password, and re-save it without the password. Then load that copy here. This is a deliberate limit — attempting to compress encrypted content would either fail or require the password to stay in memory.

What is the largest PDF I can compress?

The limit is your browser memory, not a hard cap. Chrome and Firefox on a modern laptop can usually handle PDFs up to 500 MB in Optimize mode. Rasterize mode is heavier because it decodes every page as an image; PDFs over about 200 pages at high DPI may pause the tab while rendering.

Why does Rasterize mode give such different savings on different PDFs?

Rasterize replaces all page content with one image per page at your chosen DPI and quality. Text-heavy PDFs get bigger because text compresses much better than images. Scanned documents, screenshots, and image-heavy brochures shrink dramatically because their existing images are often stored at higher quality than needed.

Do you save the PDFs I compress here?

No. We don't save the PDF you drop in, and we don't keep the compressed copy you download either. Everything is discarded the moment you close or refresh the tab — no logs, no record on our side of what you compressed. If you want extra reassurance, your browser's developer tools will confirm.

Related tools

  • PDF Split — extract only the pages you need before compressing to cut more size.
  • PDF Merge — combine several compressed PDFs into one deliverable.
  • PDF to Images — when you want the raster pages as separate JPG or PNG files instead of a PDF.
  • Image Compress — if you are compressing the source images before converting back to PDF.
  • PDF Organizer — rotate or reorder pages before compressing.
  • All PDF tools