Compress the PDF.
Right on your device.
Shrink scans and image-heavy PDFs to fit upload limits — pages are re-encoded locally at the quality you choose.
How do I compress a PDF for free? Choose a PDF, pick a compression level, and download the smaller file. The pages are re-encoded in your browser — the document is never uploaded.
Compress PDF
Compression re-encodes pages as images to make scans and image-heavy files smaller. Text becomes part of the image — keep the original for searchable text, links, or forms.
How PDF compression works here
- Add your PDF — every page is rendered locally at the resolution of the level you pick.
- Pick a level — Strong squeezes hardest, Light keeps the most detail.
- Download — the status line shows the before and after sizes so you can keep the winner.
When this helps most
- Scanned documents and phone-photo PDFs — often shrunk by 50–90%
- Uploads that must fit under a 5 MB or 10 MB portal limit
- Court, visa, and application portals that reject large files
Good to know
Rasterizing flattens text, links, and forms into images, so always keep the original. Text-heavy documents that were already small may not shrink at all — the tool tells you when that happens. Need page images instead of a PDF? Use PDF to JPG. Combining documents first? Merge PDF pairs well, and Split PDF helps when only some pages are too heavy.
Is the PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The document is read, re-encoded, and rebuilt inside your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.
Will the text stay selectable?
No. Compression re-encodes each page as an image, so text, links, and form fields are flattened. Keep the original file when you need to copy or edit text.
Why is the result bigger sometimes?
Text-heavy or already-optimized PDFs can grow when rasterized. The status line always shows both sizes before you decide which file to keep.