smaller PDF file

Compress PDF Online

Compress PDF files online and reduce file size without losing readability. No account, no watermark — just a smaller PDF ready to share.

Workflow illustration; not an actual conversion result.

Reduces file size
Keeps text selectable
No watermark
Files expire automatically

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Preset: PDF → PDF · or drop a different file and we'll auto-switch

Or paste a link to a file

Drop multiple images to combine them into one PDF, Word document, or PowerPoint presentation — or convert each image separately.

Drop a PDF and the converter opens preset to PDF output. Ghostscript reduces embedded images, fonts, and metadata to shrink the file.

Files deleted after 2 hours

Temporary uploads and outputs expire automatically.

No account required

Convert, optimize, and download without signing up.

Private temporary links

Share links are short-lived and scoped to each result.

Secure server processing

Files are processed in our controlled conversion workers.

No watermark

Downloads stay clean, including PDF and image outputs.

Use cases

Email attachments

Slip under the 25 MB inbox limit without re-exporting from the source.

Upload forms

Many portals cap uploads at 5–10 MB — compress first.

Storage savings

Shrink archived PDFs to reclaim Drive or Dropbox space.

Faster sharing

Smaller files transfer faster over slow connections.

What actually shrinks in a PDF

Most of the weight in a large PDF is images, not text. A page of prose is a few kilobytes; a single full-page scan can be several megabytes. Compression therefore works by re-encoding the embedded images, which is why results vary so widely between files.

A text-heavy document generated from Word may barely shrink at all — there was little redundancy to remove. A scanned report can often drop by most of its size, because scanner output is typically stored far larger than it needs to be.

What to expect by document type
SourceTypical outcome
Scanned pages or photosLarge reduction; the images dominate the file.
Exported from Word or PagesSmall reduction; mostly text and vector content already.
Presentation exported to PDFModerate; depends on how many images are embedded.
Already-compressed PDFLittle or none; the redundancy has already been removed.

The trade you are making

Image re-encoding is lossy. The page will look the same at reading size and will not be identical at full zoom — fine detail in photographs softens, and small text inside a scanned image is the first thing to degrade.

Check the output before you rely on it, particularly if the document contains small print, signatures, stamps, or anything someone may need to read at high magnification. Keep the original: compression is one-way, and you cannot recover the detail afterwards.

If the file is large because it has many pages rather than heavy images, splitting it into sections will help more than compressing it.

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Frequently asked questions

  • How much smaller will my PDF get?+

    Typically 30–70% smaller depending on how many high-resolution images are embedded.

  • Will text still be selectable?+

    Yes. Only images and redundant metadata are compressed — text remains selectable and searchable.

  • Can I also extract pages?+

    Yes. Enter a page range like 1-3,5 in the page range field to extract specific pages instead.

Compress PDF Online · Convert Everything