Compress a PDF
Lighter, without destroying the text
Where it runs: On your machine.
Settings
Text stays text in all three cases. None of these settings turns your pages into pictures.
Drop a file to begin.
Everything happens in this tab. The file is never sent, so there is no upload, no queue and no size ceiling beyond your device's memory.
What this tool does
It works two ways: a compressed rewrite of the structure, entirely lossless, and resampling of the embedded photos that make up most of a scan's size. Text stays text: selectable, searchable, readable by a screen reader.
Further reading
Where the file goes
How to do it
- 01Drop in the PDF you want to slim down.
- 02Choose how hard to compress, depending on use (screen or print).
- 03Run it and compare the size you get back.
Frequently asked questions
- Does the text stay selectable after compression?
- Always. Text is never turned into an image: it stays selectable, searchable and readable by a screen reader. What gets resampled are the embedded photographs, which make up most of a scan's size.
- Why does my file barely shrink?
- Because it held no heavy images. A document made of text and vectors is already compact: only the compressed rewrite of its structure applies, and that is lossless. The saving shows on scans and on image-heavy exports.
- Are screenshots turned into JPEG?
- No, deliberately. A screenshot pushed through JPEG comes out larger and with visible artefacts. Re-encoding only applies to images recognised as photographs, judged by how varied their colours are. Repeated backgrounds, meanwhile, are reduced to a single copy.