Compress PDF

The Compress PDF tool shrinks a PDF's file size so it's easier to email, upload to a form with a size cap, or store in bulk — entirely by re-rendering each page as an optimized JPEG image at a quality level you choose, then rebuilding the PDF from those images. It's aimed squarely at photo-heavy or scanned PDFs, where most of the file size comes from embedded images rather than text. If you need to reduce PDF size before sending it, want to shrink PDF online without installing anything, or just need a dependable pdf file size reducer, this is the tool.

This is a deliberate trade-off worth understanding before you use it: because there's no server-side process available to surgically re-encode just the images already embedded in the PDF (the way desktop tools like Acrobat can), this tool instead rasterizes each full page to an image and reassembles the document from those. That means any selectable text in the original becomes part of a flattened image — you'll be able to see it and print it, but not select or search it afterward. For a scanned contract or a photo-based flyer this changes nothing visually; for a text-heavy report where you need to keep the text searchable, extracting the text first with the PDF to Text tool (or simply not compressing) is the better move.

Three quality presets trade size against clarity: High compression favors the smallest possible file at a visibly softer image quality, Balanced aims for a reasonable middle ground, and Low compression keeps images crisp with a smaller size reduction. After compressing, the tool shows the before/after file size and the percentage saved before you download, so you can try a different level if the result isn't right — with zero re-uploads needed since everything runs locally.