Compress PDF
Shrink a large PDF by re-rendering pages — works best on scanned documents.
Compress PDF
Before you use this: compression works by re-rendering every page as an image.
That shrinks scanned documents a lot, but it also means text stops being selectable or
searchable — it becomes part of the picture. Great for scans and photos; usually a bad
trade for contracts, CVs, or anything a person or system needs to read the text of.
Drop a PDF here or click to browse
Best results on scanned or image-heavy documents
How to Use
- Drop a PDF onto the drop zone, or click to browse.
- Read the note about text becoming non-selectable and decide whether that is acceptable for your file.
- Pick a compression level — stronger compression means a smaller file and softer image quality.
- Click Compress, compare the before and after size, then download if you are happy with the result.
Frequently Asked Questions
QWill my text still be selectable after compressing?
No, and this is the important trade-off. Each page is rendered to an image and rebuilt, so text becomes part of the picture — it can no longer be selected, copied, or searched. That is fine for scans, which are already images, but usually a bad deal for a text document.
QWhen should I not use this tool?
Avoid it for contracts, CVs, or anything where the reader needs to search or copy the text, and for documents going through systems that read the text layer. For those, try removing large embedded images instead, or keep the original.
QWhy did my file barely get smaller — or get bigger?
PDFs that are mostly text are already small and efficiently stored, so converting them to images can actually increase the size. This tool only really pays off on scanned or image-heavy documents.
QIs the compression lossy?
Yes. Pages are re-encoded as JPEG images at the quality you select, which discards some detail. The original file on your device is untouched, so you can always start over.
About This Tool
Each page is rendered with pdf.js to a canvas at a target resolution, re-encoded as a JPEG at your chosen quality, and placed into a new PDF sized to match the original page. The saving comes from replacing the original embedded image data with a more aggressively compressed version — which is also precisely why the text layer does not survive the round trip.