PDF Compress
Process your regular or scanned PDF documents anytime, anywhere, on any device—powered by intelligent algorithms.
Trusted for 10k+ file conversions.
Upload a PDF file. We apply lossless or near-lossless compression to reduce file size while preserving clarity.
Drag or click to select multiple PDFs
Single file max 500MB
Compress PDF online for free. Near-lossless size reduction preserving text clarity and image quality. No signup, no limits. Files auto-deleted.
How your file is handled
Both the uploaded PDF and the compressed output use HTTPS. They live only inside this compression task and are removed within an hour. Download links expire at the same time, and we never persist files long-term.
When this tool fits best
- Email attachment caps (often 25MB)
Squeeze a heavy scanned contract under the typical 25MB Outlook / corporate mail attachment limit.
- Web-form upload size limits
Government, expense and application portals often cap attachments at 5–10MB; compress before uploading to be safe.
- Bulk archival to save storage
Cloud archives bill by storage; running historical PDFs through compression can recover meaningful headroom.
Features
- Near-lossless image down-sampling
Embedded raster images are down-sampled to a sensible DPI; text stays sharp and images stay readable.
- Font subsetting
Unused glyphs are dropped from embedded fonts, which often shaves significant file size.
- Redundant resources cleared
Orphan objects, duplicate font copies and repeated image entries are pruned.
- Live size comparison
The result page reports original size, compressed size and compression ratio so impact is easy to quantify.
- Still editable afterwards
Compression doesn't reflow the document; the compressed PDF is still editable in any PDF editor.
- Tuned for sending and archiving
Particularly effective for email attachments, web-form uploads and long-term archival.
How to use
- 1Upload the PDF
Drop in or pick the PDF you want to shrink (up to 500MB).
- 2Profile size sources
We figure out where the bytes are: embedded images, fonts, attachments or redundant objects.
- 3Apply compression
Down-sample images near-losslessly, subset fonts and clean up redundancy.
- 4Inspect savings and download
Compare original vs compressed size and ratio, then download if you're happy.
Limits and things to watch out for
- Already-optimized PDFs barely shrink— If another tool already compressed the file, there's little room left and the size may even nudge upward slightly.
- Vector-heavy PDFs see modest gains— Files dominated by vector illustrations or sparse text don't have much raster bulk to drop.
- Aggressive compression can damage OCR text layers— Searchable PDFs from OCR may lose the text layer if compression is too aggressive — keep a copy of the searchable original.
- Layout is never reflowed— Compression doesn't change page layout or reading order; only file size shrinks.
FAQ
- QWill text look blurry afterwards?
- Default compression only down-samples images; text remains in its original vector form and looks identical.
- QWhy didn't the file shrink much?
- It may already be compressed, or be vector-and-text dominant with no raster bulk to drop.
- QCan I pick a compression level?
- We currently apply a single near-lossless preset; tunable levels are on the roadmap.
- QIs the compressed PDF still editable?
- Yes — the document structure is preserved and any PDF editor can open it.
- QWill bookmarks and hyperlinks survive?
- Yes, bookmarks and links are preserved by default.
- QIs batch compression supported?
- Single file per run for now; batch is on the roadmap.
- QWhy did some PDFs grow after compression?
- For already-tight or vector-heavy files, metadata adjustments can outweigh the savings and grow the file slightly.
- QHow long are files kept?
- They're purged within an hour and the download link expires alongside.
Before compressing, see if you can drop pages
If the goal is hitting an attachment limit, try splitting out the pages you don't actually need to send before compressing — it usually shrinks the result far more than compression alone.