Compress PDF

This free online PDF compressor shrinks a PDF's file size by re-rendering every page at a controlled resolution and quality, which is exactly where most PDF bloat actually comes from — high-resolution scanned pages or embedded photos, far larger than the document needs to look sharp on a screen or in print. Pick a compression level, and every page is processed and rebuilt into a single, much smaller PDF, ready to download.

Three compression levels cover the range people actually need: High compression for the smallest possible file — ideal for archiving scans or clearing out storage where every megabyte counts — Balanced as a solid everyday default that keeps pages sharp while still cutting size significantly, and Best quality for a lighter touch when the document needs to hold up to closer inspection or printing. A live progress indicator tracks each page as it processes, and the before/after file size with the exact percentage saved appears the moment it's done.

It's important to know upfront what this approach trades off, rather than discover it after downloading: each page is rendered as an image, so if your PDF has real, selectable text, that text becomes part of a picture in the output and can no longer be selected, searched or copied. That's exactly the same trade-off most free online PDF compressors make under the hood, and it's the right one for what this tool is built for — scanned documents, photo-heavy PDFs, and anything that's effectively already a set of images — but it's the wrong tool if you need to keep a text-based document's text searchable and selectable afterward.

Every page renders and re-compresses entirely in your browser using PDF.js and canvas — nothing is ever uploaded to a server, so it's instant, works identically on a phone or a laptop, and is the safest way to compress a private or sensitive PDF, since there's no upload and no server-side copy of your document to worry about.