PDF Compressor
Shrink PDF file size, right in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
⚠ Heads up before you compress
This tool works by turning each page into a re-compressed image — it dramatically shrinks image-heavy or scanned PDFs, but the output PDF will no longer have selectable or searchable text. If you need to keep text selectable, this isn't the right tool for that PDF.
Drop your PDF here
or click to browse — processed entirely on your device
Large PDFs — especially scanned documents or ones packed with photos — can be slow to email, upload, or share. This tool shrinks a PDF's file size by re-rendering each page as a re-compressed image and rebuilding the PDF from those images, entirely in your browser.
This approach works especially well on image-heavy or scanned PDFs, where most of the file size comes from embedded photos rather than text. It's a genuine trade-off, not a free lunch: the output PDF no longer has selectable, searchable, or copyable text, since every page becomes a picture of itself.
Nothing is uploaded — the whole process (rendering, compressing, rebuilding) happens on your device using WebAssembly-based PDF libraries.
Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Upload your PDF
Click the upload area or drag a PDF file onto it.
- 2
Pick a compression level
Smallest size for maximum shrinkage, Best quality to keep more detail.
- 3
Compress and download
Compare the before/after size, then download the result.
Common use cases
Scanned documents
Photos or scans of paper documents compress especially well with this approach.
Email attachment limits
Shrink a PDF enough to fit under a provider's attachment size cap.
Faster uploads and sharing
A smaller file moves faster over slow connections.
Tips for best results
- If your PDF is mostly text (like a Word export) rather than images or scans, this tool won't shrink it much — the size is already efficient as real text, not image data.
- Try 'Balanced' first — it's usually the best size-to-readability tradeoff. Only drop to 'Smallest size' if you need the file as small as possible and don't mind visible quality loss.
Frequently asked questions
Will the text still be selectable after compressing?
No — every page becomes a re-compressed image, so text can no longer be selected, searched, or copied in the output PDF.
Does this tool upload my PDF anywhere?
No — rendering and compression both happen in your browser; the file never leaves your device.
Why didn't my file get much smaller?
If the original PDF is mostly text with few or no images, there isn't much to compress — text-based PDFs are already compact.