Compress PDF — Reduce File Size for Email and Upload
Shrink a bulky PDF so it fits under email attachment limits or uploads faster to portals and forms. The compressor re-renders each page as an image at a quality level you control — you can trade sharpness for size.
Quality slider explained
At 0.9 the output looks nearly identical to the original but savings are modest. At 0.5-0.6 the file is much smaller and still readable for most documents. Below 0.3 text starts to look fuzzy — only use it for archival copies where size is critical.
Best for scanned or image-heavy PDFs
The compressor works by rasterizing pages, so PDFs made from scans or full of screenshots shrink dramatically. Text-only PDFs from Word already store text efficiently and see smaller gains.
Trade-off: text becomes non-selectable
Because pages are converted to images, you lose text selection and search. If keeping selectable text matters, use a lighter approach like removing unused images from the source.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my compressed PDF still large?
If the source contains many high-resolution photos, even aggressive compression stays large. Try lowering quality to 0.4 or splitting the PDF and compressing chapters separately.
Will OCR still work on the compressed PDF?
The output is images — OCR tools can still re-read them, but at lower quality the accuracy drops.
Does compression protect the content?
No. Compression only changes storage size, not access. Use Password Protect PDF for that.