Compress PDF

Reduce PDF file size by compressing images embedded in your documents. Achieve up to 90% file size reduction while maintaining readable quality. Perfect for email attachments, document sharing, and storage optimization. Works great with scanned documents and image-heavy PDFs.

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PDF Batch Upload
Max 50MB per file • Up to 10 files
Related Tools:
PDF Viewer Merge PDF Split PDF PNG to PDF WEBP to PDF

How to Compress PDF Files

  1. Upload your PDF files by dragging and dropping or clicking the upload area. You can process up to 10 files at once for batch compression.
  2. Choose a compression level: Select from Low (best quality), Medium (balanced), High (smaller files), or Maximum (smallest size) presets.
  3. Enable custom settings (optional) to fine-tune image quality, DPI, and color mode for precise control over the output.
  4. Compress and download: Click the compress button and download individual files or all as a ZIP archive.
Pro tip: For scanned documents, use our JPG to PDF converter with optimized settings, or try the JPG Compressor before creating your PDF.

Compression Levels Explained

Low

~20% reduction. Minimal compression for documents where quality is critical. Best for professional presentations, portfolios, or documents with detailed images. Uses 90% image quality at 300 DPI.

Medium

~50% reduction. The recommended setting for most use cases. Perfect balance between file size and visual quality. Ideal for email attachments and web uploads. Uses 75% quality at 150 DPI.

High

~70% reduction. Significant compression while maintaining readable quality. Great for archiving, sharing large document sets, or when storage space is limited. Uses 60% quality at 150 DPI.

Maximum

~90% reduction. Aggressive compression for maximum space savings. Best for text-heavy documents where images are secondary. Uses 40% quality at 72 DPI. Consider using Image to PDF for better results.

What Gets Compressed?

Embedded Images

Photos, scanned pages, and graphics are recompressed using JPEG compression with adjustable quality.

Image Resolution

High-resolution images are downsampled to your selected DPI, significantly reducing file size without visible quality loss on screen.

Metadata & Redundant Data

Optional removal of author info, creation dates, and unused objects that add to file size.

Text & Vector Graphics

Text content and vector elements remain crisp and unchanged. Only raster images are compressed.

Best Use Cases

Email Attachments

Most email services limit attachments to 25MB. Compress large PDFs to share them easily via email.

Web Uploads

Reduce upload times and meet website file size limits. Perfect for forms, applications, and submissions.

Document Archiving

Save storage space when archiving large document collections. Especially useful for scanned documents.

Mobile Sharing

Smaller files download faster on mobile networks. Great for sharing documents via messaging apps.

Frequently Asked Questions

The reduction depends on your PDF content. Image-heavy documents (scanned pages, photos) can be reduced by 50-90%. Text-heavy PDFs with few images may only reduce by 10-30%. For best results with images, try our JPG Compressor before creating PDFs.

No, text in PDFs is vector-based and remains perfectly sharp regardless of compression settings. Only embedded raster images (photos, scans) are affected. If your text appears blurry, it may already be part of a scanned image.

DPI (dots per inch) affects image sharpness when printed. 72 DPI is fine for screen viewing, 150 DPI works for most printing needs, and 300 DPI is professional print quality. Higher DPI = larger file size. For web-only documents, 72-150 DPI is sufficient.

Currently, password-protected PDFs cannot be processed. You'll need to remove the password first, compress the file, then re-add protection if needed. This ensures document security is maintained.

Yes, your files are processed securely and automatically deleted within 24 hours. We don't store, share, or access your document content. All processing happens on our secure servers with encrypted connections.

Some PDFs are already optimized or contain mostly text/vectors. In rare cases, the compressed version may be similar in size or slightly larger. Try the Maximum preset or convert images to grayscale. For image files, use our PNG Compressor or JPG Compressor directly.