PDFs from scanners, phones, and design tools are notoriously bloated — a single scanned contract can easily hit 20–50MB, far too big for email or chat. This free PDF compressor shrinks them dramatically, right in your browser. No accounts, no uploads, no quality watermark. Drop in your file, pick a compression level, and download a much smaller PDF you can actually send. Most users see 50–80% size reductions on scanned or image-heavy documents.
A PDF compressor reduces the file size of a PDF by re-encoding its content — typically by downscaling embedded images and applying stronger image compression. Unlike server-based compressors that upload your PDF to remote machines, this tool uses pdf.js to render each page in your browser and pdf-lib to assemble a new, smaller PDF locally. The trade-off for the size savings is that text becomes part of the rasterized image and is no longer selectable in the output.
100% client-side processing — your PDF never leaves your browser. Three compression levels tuned for different needs. Live page-by-page progress indicator. Shows exact before/after file sizes and percentage saved. Preserves original page dimensions so the output measures correctly when printed. Works on PDFs of any structure — scanned, born-digital, or mixed. No watermarks, no ads, no sign-up.
When you drop a PDF, the tool loads it with pdf.js and reads every page's dimensions. For each page, it renders the page to a canvas at a controlled resolution (based on your compression level), then encodes the canvas as a JPEG at a controlled quality. The JPEG is embedded into a new PDF document with the original page size preserved, so the visual result lines up correctly. After all pages are processed, the new PDF is saved with object streams enabled for an extra structural size win and offered as a download.
Sending PDFs by email — many providers cap attachments at 25MB; compression brings most bloated PDFs comfortably under. Uploading to government portals — Indian portals (UIDAI, IT department, EPFO) often enforce strict size limits like 2MB or 500KB. Sharing via WhatsApp or chat — file pickers in chat apps reject large PDFs; compression makes them shareable. Storage on cloud drives — shrink long-archived scans to save quota. Faster web delivery — smaller PDFs load faster when embedded on a site or in a CRM. Bank statement consolidation — a year of scanned statements can balloon to 200MB; compression makes it manageable.
Privacy first — most online compressors upload your file to a server, run their tools, and offer the output. We don't. The compression runs entirely in your browser, which matters when you're shrinking sensitive documents like bank statements, IDs, or contracts. Predictable — three clearly labeled levels rather than vague 'magic' settings, so you can pick the right trade-off. Honest — we tell you upfront that text becomes an image in the output, so you can decide whether that's acceptable. Free forever — no premium tier, no email gate.
Job applicants compressing CV PDFs under portal limits. Students submitting scanned assignments to LMS platforms with size caps. Accountants and CAs sending bundles of statements to clients via email. Government portal users (UIDAI, IT, EPFO) who must stay under strict KB limits. Photographers and designers sending PDF proofs over email. Anyone who keeps running into 'file too large' errors when sharing PDFs.
Drop your PDF or click to browse. Pick a compression level — Medium is the right starting point for most use cases. Click 'Compress PDF' and watch the progress as each page is processed. Download the result and compare the before/after sizes. If the output is too soft, try Low; if it's still too big, try High.
Use Medium for the email-sharing use case — it's the sweet spot between size and quality. Use High only for documents that are already scanned at low quality, where you won't notice further degradation. For mixed PDFs (text + images), consider running our PDF Split tool first to isolate the image-heavy pages, compress them, then merge back. Always verify the compressed PDF opens correctly before deleting the original.
Text becomes an image after compression — not selectable or searchable in the output. Vector graphics and embedded fonts are rasterized, so very crisp line art may look softer. Memory-intensive on mobile for large PDFs — desktop is recommended for files over 30MB. Password-protected PDFs need to be unlocked first.
Yes. No sign-up, no watermark, no daily limit, no premium tier. Compress as many PDFs as you like.
No. The entire compression runs in your browser using pdf.js and pdf-lib. Your PDF never touches our servers. You can verify with DevTools → Network — zero uploads happen when you click Compress.
Typical reductions are 40–80%. Image-heavy and scanned PDFs see the biggest savings — a 20MB scanned contract often compresses to 3–5MB on Medium. PDFs that are already well-optimized text-only documents won't shrink as much, since there's no fat to trim.
Each level controls how much we downscale pages and how aggressively we recompress images. Low caps pages at 2400px and uses 85% JPEG quality (best visual quality). Medium caps at 1800px and 65% quality (best for sharing). High caps at 1280px and 45% quality (smallest file, some visible quality loss).
No. To achieve significant size reductions, each page is rasterized into a JPEG image. The output PDF looks the same but text is no longer selectable or searchable. If you need to keep text selectable, use Low or skip compression entirely for text-only PDFs.
Because pages are converted to images. Try the Low setting for sharper output, or stop using compression for documents where text crispness matters more than file size.
Up to 100MB. Compression is memory-intensive because every page is rendered to a canvas — large PDFs may struggle on mobile devices. Use a desktop for files over 30MB.
Yes, but with limits. The compression is more CPU- and memory-heavy than our other PDF tools, so very large PDFs may be slow. Smaller files (under 20MB) compress quickly on modern phones.