Compress PDF
See what it costs before you shrink it.
FREE · NO SIGN-UP · RUNS ON YOUR DEVICE
Your PDFs stay on your device
- 2WAYS DOWN
- 1PAGE PREVIEW
- 0UPLOADS
- 0SIGN-UP
What you can count on
- 2honest choices
- Keep the text, or go much smaller
- The cost of each is stated
- 1real page measured
- The estimate is not a guess
- Drawn at your exact setting
- 0surprises
- A before and after preview
- Bigger result gives back the original
Compress PDF at a glance
- Input formats
- Output formats
- Keep the text
- Text stays selectable
- Make it much smaller
- Pages become pictures
- What you give up
- No text selection
- Maximum file size
- Device memory
- If it comes out bigger
- Original returned
- Price
- Free
- Account required
- None
- Where it runs
- On your device
How to use Compress PDF
- 1
Add the PDF
It is read here and measured: pages, size per page, and whether it is a scan.
- 2
Pick how far to go
Keep the text, or redraw for a much smaller file. Each shows its real size.
- 3
Check, then shrink
Compare the before and after page, then download when it looks right.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my PDF so large in the first place?
Almost always photographs inside it. A scan or a phone photo is a full-resolution picture per page, and page count multiplies it.
Will the text still be selectable?
In the keep-the-text mode, yes, nothing about the text changes. In the smaller mode the page becomes a picture, so no.
Which setting should I use?
If the file is a scan there is no selectable text to lose, so redraw it. If it was made from a document, keep the text.
Why did mine barely get smaller?
A file that is mostly text is already small and well packed. The keep-the-text mode will say so rather than pretend.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The file is opened, drawn and rebuilt in this tab. It never leaves your device.
What happens if I switch to another tab while it works?
The work pauses and picks up where it left off when you come back. Browsers throttle hidden tabs, so a job left running in the background would slow to a crawl or stall outright.
Is the size shown before I download a guess?
No. The tidy setting runs a full pass and reports the size it actually produced, so the figure on screen is the file you get.
What actually makes a PDF smaller
Two ways down: rewrite the file and keep every word selectable, or redraw the pages for a much smaller file.
- Resolution. A page drawn at 96 dpi is roughly a quarter the pixels of one at 200 dpi.
- Photo quality. Dropping from 90% to 70% is usually invisible on screen and cuts the size sharply.
- Color. Grayscale can halve a scanned page again with no loss of legibility.
- What does not help: removing metadata alone. It is measured in kilobytes, not megabytes.
Full specification
| Input formats | PDF, including scans and files made by a phone camera. |
|---|---|
| Output formats | PDF. |
| Keep the text | Rewrites the file structure and drops metadata. Text, links and search are untouched. |
| Make it much smaller | Draws each page as a picture at the detail and quality you pick. Best on scans. |
| What you give up | In the smaller mode the text becomes part of the picture, so it cannot be selected, searched or copied. |
| Maximum file size | Limited only by your device memory. Large scans are slower because every page is drawn. |
| If it comes out bigger | Your original file is what you download instead. |
| Price | Free. Supported by clearly labeled ads placed outside the working area. |
| Account required | No. |
| Where it runs | In your browser tab. The file is never sent anywhere. |
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