Use this when color is not required; it usually shrinks scans further.
Load your PDF
Drop a PDF or click to choose
The file stays on this device. Large PDFs may take a moment to render.
Compression settings
Pick a preset and override any values you need; blank fields fall back to the preset.
Enter a value smaller than the original to auto-tune quality toward that size.
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Results
Tips
- Balanced keeps most detail while cutting size for mail and LMS uploads.
- Lower DPI and quality reduce images most; text stays vector for sharpness.
- Use grayscale when color is not essential to shrink scans further.
- Very large PDFs take longer. Watch the in-app progress and keep the tab open until it finishes.
- Text-heavy PDFs are often already small, so compression impact may be modest.
Pick settings by file type
Compression depends on what is inside the PDF. Image-heavy scans usually shrink more than text-heavy or vector documents.
Preset guide
- Balanced: start here for email, classroom, and everyday sharing.
- Smallest: use when upload limits matter more than image detail.
- Custom: set DPI and image quality when you have a target file size.
- Grayscale: useful for black-and-white scans, invoices, and worksheets.
Target size and scanned PDFs
A target size helps the tool tune image quality, but it cannot guarantee an exact number for every PDF. If a scanned PDF barely shrinks, try the scanned-PDF engine, lower DPI, or compress only the pages that contain large images.
After compression
Open the downloaded PDF and check one text page plus one image-heavy page. If the images look too soft, raise quality or DPI and run the compression again.
FAQ
Which compression preset should I start with?
Start with Balanced for everyday sharing. Use Smallest when file size matters more than image detail, and use Custom when you need a specific DPI or JPEG quality.
How does target size work?
Enter a target smaller than the original file. The tool tunes image quality toward that size, but exact results depend on the PDF content and how much image data can be reduced.
When should I use the scanned-PDF engine?
Use it for image-heavy scanned documents when the standard document engine does not reduce the file enough. It can shrink scans more, but text and images may look softer.
Why did my PDF not get much smaller?
Some PDFs already contain compressed images or mostly vector/text content. In those cases there may be little image data left for the browser to reduce.
Will compression change the original PDF?
No. The tool creates a new compressed PDF for download. The source file stays unchanged unless you overwrite it yourself after download.
Are my PDF files uploaded?
No. This tool processes your PDF in your browser. Files are not uploaded to a server while you use the tool.