Compress a PDF

Shrink file size by re-rendering each page as a compressed image. Best for scanned/image-heavy PDFs — text will no longer be selectable or searchable afterward.

The usual reason to compress a PDF is that something won't accept it — an email attachment limit, an upload cap, a portal that silently rejects anything over a few megabytes. This shrinks the file by re-rendering each page as a compressed image, which is why it works so well on scans and so modestly on text.

How Compress a PDF works

  1. Drop your file into the tool, or click to browse.
  2. Everything runs in your browser — no upload, no server, no waiting.
  3. Download your result straight to your device.

Good to know: Because pages become images, the text in the output is no longer selectable or searchable, and it won't be readable by a screen reader. That's a real trade — if you need the text to stay text, don't compress this way. If you need to hit an exact number of kilobytes rather than 'smaller', use Compress PDF to exact size instead.

Common questions

Why did my PDF barely shrink?

Because it was already mostly text. Text is tiny; the space in a PDF is almost always the images. A scanned document compresses dramatically, a text report barely at all — there's little there to remove.

Can I still search or select the text afterward?

No. Each page is re-rendered as an image, so the text becomes pixels. If you need selectable text, keep the original.