Compress PDF: Shrink PDF File Size Free

Shrink a PDF to fit email and upload limits, with a level or target size.

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Compress a PDF to 100 KB, 200 KB or 1 MB

Upload forms and email limits ask for an exact size. Choose By target file size, pick 100 KB, 200 KB, 500 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 5 MB or 10 MB, or type your own, and the tool searches for the highest quality that still fits. If a file cannot get under the limit, it tells you the smallest size it reached instead of handing back an unreadable PDF. Each size has its own guide:

Compress a PDF without losing quality

Quality is a trade between size and sharpness. Choose Recommended to keep pages readable on screen, or Keep text selectable to recompress only the images and leave text and vector graphics untouched. Always start from your original file, because each pass adds JPEG artifacts. For DPI settings and Mac and Word alternatives, read how to reduce PDF file size without losing quality.

How to compress a PDF for free in 3 steps

1
Select PDF file
Click the button or drop the file. It is not uploaded.
2
Pick a size
Choose a level or type a target like 200 KB.
3
Download
Save the new file. Your original stays as it was.

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About this tool

Make a PDF up to 90% smaller so it fits email and upload limits. Pick Extreme, Recommended or Low, or type an exact target size like 200 KB. It runs in this tab, so nothing is uploaded, and there is no sign-up or watermark.

Limits and edge cases

Compression rasterizes every page to a JPEG image, so selectable or searchable text in the source becomes a flattened image in the output — see the note above before compressing something you'll need to search or copy from.
Estimated sizes shown next to each level are approximate, sampled from a handful of pages rather than the whole document, so the final result can differ slightly from the preview.
Extreme compression can visibly soften small text and fine image detail; if a page looks blurry, re-run the original file (not the already-compressed one) at Recommended or Low.
Compressing an already-compressed PDF repeatedly adds JPEG artifacts each pass — always start from your best original file.

Extreme compression vs recommended: what each level does

This isn't a marketing scale: each level re-renders your pages at a specific resolution and JPEG quality, and the settings below are exactly what the tool runs. Your own result depends on how image-heavy your source PDF is, so treat this as how the levels differ from each other, not a promised output size.

Level	Render scale	JPEG quality	What that means
Low	1.5×	85%	Smallest cut in size; images stay close to their original sharpness.
Recommended	1.2×	70%	The balance most scans should use: text stays legible at 100% zoom.
Extreme	0.9×	45%	Biggest cut in size; fine print and small detail visibly soften past 100% zoom.

Which one to pick: start with Recommended. Move to Extreme only when Recommended is still over your limit and the pages are photos or clean scans, not small print. Use Low when the file has to stay sharp, for example before printing.

Real results from our own tests. These are PDFs we generated for testing (scans and photo pages with image noise, and a text document), run through this tool in a browser, so your files will differ. "Keep text" is the Keep text selectable mode.

Test file	Original	Low	Recommended	Extreme	Keep text
10 pages of colour photos	11.7 MB	1.5 MB (86% smaller)	648 KB (94% smaller)	280 KB (98% smaller)	2.7 MB (76% smaller)
20-page scan	29.4 MB	6.1 MB (78% smaller)	2.9 MB (90% smaller)	999 KB (97% smaller)	11 MB (62% smaller)
5-page grey scan	2.2 MB	1.8 MB (12% smaller)	720 KB (66% smaller)	307 KB (86% smaller)	2.1 MB (0% smaller)
15 pages of text and images	4.8 MB	4.5 MB (1% smaller)	2.1 MB (53% smaller)	921 KB (80% smaller)	3.9 MB (14% smaller)
30-page text-only document	80 KB	Not saved: would be 9.5 MB	Not saved: would be 5.4 MB	Not saved: would be 2.3 MB	78 KB (0% smaller)

Two things to take from the table. Scans and photo pages shrink the most, which is where the "up to 90% smaller" comes from, and in these tests it was exceeded. A PDF that is already mostly text does the opposite: the three levels turn every page into an image, so the result would be larger. When that happens the tool does not download it, tells you so and leaves your original untouched. For that kind of file, use Keep text selectable, which leaves the text alone and recompresses only the images, or keep the file as it is.

Compared with tools that upload your file

iLovePDF, Smallpdf and PDF24 all offer this kind of job, and the online ones upload your file to their servers to do it. Here the work happens in this tab instead. Read the honest comparisons with iLovePDF, Smallpdf and PDF24, including where they are the better choice, or how to check that a tool does not upload.

Frequently asked questions

How much smaller will my PDF get?+

Image-heavy PDFs typically shrink by 40-90%. Text-only PDFs shrink much less, since they're already compact — the exact reduction depends on how much of the file is images versus text.

Will compression make my PDF blurry?+

The "Recommended" setting balances size and visual quality. The "Extreme" setting compresses more aggressively and may visibly reduce image quality.

Will the compressed PDF still have selectable text?+

No — compression re-renders every page as a JPEG image and embeds that image in the output PDF, so text that was selectable in the original is no longer selectable or searchable afterward. Keep the original file if you need searchable text, and only share the compressed copy for its smaller size.

Why doesn't the estimated size exactly match the final file?+

The size shown next to each compression level is an estimate based on a small sample of pages, not the whole document, so it's a close approximation rather than an exact number. The real file size appears after you click Compress PDF.

Is my file uploaded to compress it?+

No. Compression runs locally using your browser's JavaScript engine — your PDF never leaves your device.

Which compression level keeps the most quality?+

Use Recommended compression on the original file (not a copy you already squeezed). It re-renders each page as a compressed image at a screen-friendly resolution, so text is not selectable afterward. If it is still too big for email, delete unused pages or split the PDF instead of switching to Extreme.

Can I compress a PDF to an exact file size, like 100KB or 1MB?+

Yes — switch to "By target file size" and pick a preset (100KB up to 10MB) or enter a custom size. The tool searches for the highest quality that still fits your target instead of guessing a fixed level. If a file genuinely can't be compressed that far without becoming unreadable — usually because it's already mostly text with little image data to remove — it tells you the smallest size it could safely reach instead of silently handing back the wrong number.

Can I compress a PDF and keep the text selectable?+

Yes. Choose Keep text selectable. Only the images inside the PDF are recompressed, and text, links and vector graphics are untouched. A file that is mostly text will barely shrink.

Related guides

Also on Mac or Android? See our Mac guide and our Android guide.

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