Make a PDF smaller without making it look worse. Free, with no account or uploads.
Drop PDFs to compress
Add one PDF or several to see what makes them big, then make them smaller. You can also paste with ⌘V or Ctrl+V.
PDF
Stays on your device · up to 100 files, 500 MB together
No scan at hand?
What you can do
See what makes it bigPictures, fonts, hidden data: the file's size is shown part by part before anything is changed.
Smaller pictures that look the sameEach picture is brought down to the size it is shown at, and saved at a quality found by measuring.
Reach a sizeName the size a form or an email allows, such as 200 KB, and get the best quality that fits.
Checked before you downloadPages stay pages, with text you can select. They are drawn before and after and compared.
A little help along the way
Watch the tour, or follow the same steps below. Every option is explained underneath.
1 min 6 s, no sound. On-screen captions describe each step; the same steps are written out here.
1Add your PDFsDrop one PDF or several, choose them from your device or paste them. A locked file asks for its password; a damaged one is repaired where possible.
2See what makes it bigThe file's size is shown part by part: pictures, fonts, text and drawings, hidden data and the rest, with the heaviest pictures and the pages they are on.
3Choose how much to compressLossless changes nothing you can see. Balanced makes pictures smaller so that they still look the same. Strong goes further, for screens and email. Or name a size the file has to come out under.
4CompressPress Compress PDF. Pictures are taken one at a time, and each is only swapped for a smaller one that has been read back and checked.
5Compare before and afterPages are drawn both ways and compared for you. Drag the divider across any page to look yourself, at up to twice its size.
6DownloadRead the result in the reader if you like, then download it, or all files as one ZIP. If a file cannot be made smaller, the page says so and keeps your original.
Every option explained
What makes it big
Every stored part of the file is counted: pictures, fonts, the text and drawings of the pages, private data left by the app that made the file, attached files, page thumbnails, document details and colour profiles. What is left is the file's structure: bookmarks, links, forms and tags.
Lossless
Nothing visible changes. Identical parts are stored once and unused ones are dropped, the file is packed into compressed streams, fonts stored whole are cut down to the letters in use, page thumbnails and private app data are taken out, and pictures stored without loss are packed tighter. Each repacked picture is read back and must match pixel for pixel.
Balanced
Everything Lossless does, and pictures with more than about 190 pixels per inch at the size they are shown are brought down to 150. Photographs are saved as JPEG at the lowest quality that still measures as looking the same. Drawings, charts and screenshots stay lossless, so their edges stay sharp. A JPEG that is already at a modest quality is left alone, so quality is not lost twice.
Strong
As Balanced, down to 96 pixels per inch and a lower quality. Good for reading on a screen and for sending by email. Fine print inside photographs may soften, so compare a page before you download. Not meant for printing.
To a size
For forms and inboxes with a limit. Choose 100 KB, 200 KB, 500 KB, 1, 2, 5, 10 or 25 MB, or type a size in KB or MB. The only way to know what a file weighs at some setting is to write it, so the file is written up to nine times, from gentle to harsh, and the gentlest result that fits is kept. It stops where pictures are still easy to read (72 dpi). If the size cannot be reached, you get the smallest readable result and are told how far over it is. “Go further” lets pictures get blurry when the size matters more.
Custom
For those who know what they want. Choose the resolution pictures are brought down to (72 to 300 dpi) and the JPEG quality photographs are saved at, which is used exactly as set, with no measuring. Pictures can lose their colour, and fonts can be left whole for a file whose text will be edited later.
Take out
Things a file can do without, each by a switch that is off until you turn it on: its title and other details, attached files, bookmarks, notes and highlights, scripts, and accessibility tags. “Flatten form fields” makes what is filled in part of the page and takes the fields away. What is taken out is gone from the result for good, and the result is made even when it is no smaller.
Password
The result can be locked with AES-256, with limits on printing, copying and changes and an optional second password that lifts them. A file that came with a password keeps it unless you set a new one.
Scanned pages
A page that is one large picture is a scan. “Text and paper” takes it apart: the letters are kept in black and white at the scan's own sharpness, the paper behind them becomes a soft, small colour picture, and the ink keeps its colour, so a red stamp stays red. This is usually several times smaller than a picture of the whole page, and easier to read. Words hidden over the scan by a text recogniser stay where they are. A scan with no print in it is treated like any other picture. “Greyscale” takes the colour out. “Black and white” makes a photocopy: smallest of all, right for plain text, but photographs and shading are lost.
Black-and-white pictures
Pictures with one bit a pixel are packed with JBIG2 at every level, without changing a pixel. Only the lossless kind of JBIG2 is written. The other kind stores one shape for letters that look alike and can put the wrong letter on a page; it is never used here.
Several files
Every file gets a row with what it came to. What is chosen applies to all of them. Press a file's name to see its breakdown and its pages before and after. One file that cannot be read does not stop the others. “Download all” makes one ZIP on your device; a file that could not be made smaller is in it as it was.
What is never changed
Pages are not turned into pictures. Text stays sharp and can be selected, searched and read aloud. Links, bookmarks, form fields, notes, layers, accessibility tags, attached files and page numbers stay as they are. A locked file keeps its password.
Pictures that are left alone
Pictures with more than eight bits per colour, pictures in unusual colour spaces and pictures whose see-through parts depend on exact colours are not touched. CMYK pictures stay CMYK. A picture is only ever swapped for one that is smaller.
The check
Pages with changed pictures are drawn from the original and from the result and compared. With many such pages, a spread of them is compared and the page says how many. Pages that changed more than the level allows are named, so you can look at them first.
Before and after
One page under a divider: the original on the left, the result on the right. Drag the divider or use the arrow keys, step through the pages, and switch to 100% or 200% to look closely.
Already small
When a level cannot make the file at least one percent smaller, no new file is made and the page says so. Files that are mostly text, or whose pictures are already small, often cannot shrink further.
Signed and archive files
Compressing changes the file, so a digital signature is no longer valid in the result. A PDF/A archive file may no longer pass an archive check. The page tells you before you compress.
Private by design
The file is read and compressed on your device. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account and there are no limits on how many files you compress. Once the page has loaded, it works offline.