Will compressing reduce my PDF's quality?

At "Light" it's barely noticeable; "Strong" trades visible quality for the smallest file. We also never hand back a file bigger than what you started with — if compressing wouldn't help, we tell you.

Why didn't my PDF get any smaller?

Text-based PDFs are often already smaller than any image version of themselves. Compression helps most with scanned or image-heavy PDFs — for pure text, your file was likely already efficient.

What's a good target size for email attachments?

Most email providers cap attachments around 25 MB, but many people aim smaller for reliability. Try "Recommended" first, then "Strong" if you still need it lighter.

Compress PDF

Shrink a PDF down for email or upload limits. Every page is re-rendered on your device at a size you choose — no server ever sees the file.

Read the Compress PDF guide

Processed on your device

Upload a PDF to Compress PDF

Drag and drop or click to select

Once compress pdf is done, you can send the result straight into another tool — merge, sign, compress, and more — without downloading and re-uploading.

Compression level

Tip: Try “Recommended” first. Use “Strong” only if file size is critical.

Common variations of this task

Compress PDF to 100 KB

Target a hard 100 KB ceiling.

Compress PDF to 200 KB

Target a 200 KB ceiling.

Compress PDF to 1 MB

Target a 1 MB ceiling.

Compress PDF for Email

Fit under a typical email attachment limit.

Works well with

Merge PDF

Combine multiple PDFs into a single file, in the order you set.

Split PDF

Extract page ranges into new files, or pull every page out on its own.

OCR PDF

Turn a scanned PDF into one you can search, select, and copy text from.