How to use it
- Add the PDFs you want to shrink. If you add several, they are compressed one by one.
- The first pass uses Keep text · Medium. Change the compression or quality and the files are compressed again with the new settings.
- If there is an upload limit, pick a Target size. Starting from the quality you chose, it steps the quality down until the result fits.
- Check how much smaller each file got and Download it. With several files, use Download all as ZIP.
Which option should I choose?
- Keep text (recommended): text, tables and lines stay as they are and only the images inside the document are recompressed. Text selection, search, links and bookmarks all keep working. The more scans or photos a PDF has, the more it shrinks.
- Maximum (pages to images): every page is turned into an image and a new PDF is built. PDFs with many photos or scans shrink a lot, but text-only PDFs can get larger. Text selection, search, links and bookmarks are lost too.
- Quality: High is fine for printing and Medium is comfortable for reading on screen. Low gives the smallest file, but small text inside photos may get blurry.
When it helps
- Your LMS assignment upload has a limit such as "10MB max"
- A PDF is over the attachment limit of your email
- A scholarship or internship application portal limits uploads to something like 5MB per file
- A PDF scanned with your phone or a copier is far too large
If you need to hand in one file, combine your PDFs with Merge PDF first and then compress. Still too big? Split it with Split PDF and upload the parts. To shrink photo files themselves, use Compress Image, and for Hangul documents, create a PDF with HWP to PDF before compressing.
FAQ
Will the quality get worse?
Keep text never touches text, tables or lines, so they stay exactly as sharp as the original. Only the images are recompressed: at Medium the difference is hard to notice on screen, and at Low small text inside photos may get a little blurry. With Maximum the whole page becomes an image, so text edges may look soft when you zoom in a lot.
Will I still be able to select the text?
Yes, with Keep text. Selecting, copying and searching text work just like before. If you choose Maximum, pages become images and the text can no longer be selected or searched. Check first whether the place you're submitting to needs searchable text.
How much smaller will it get?
It depends on what's inside the PDF. PDFs made of scans or phone photos often shrink to half the size or less. PDFs that are mostly text, or that were exported from PowerPoint, are usually well compressed already and may shrink by only a few percent. If the PDF has many images, set the quality to Low or try Maximum. Maximum can make a text-only PDF larger, so if it is still too big, split it with Split PDF and upload the parts. If the result would be larger than the original, you get the original back.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Everything happens inside your browser and your PDFs are never sent anywhere.
Can I compress a password-protected PDF?
Not with Keep text. Maximum works once you enter the password, and the compressed file has no password. PDFs whose author has disabled printing cannot be compressed.
What about PDFs with a digital signature?
They can be compressed, but the signature is no longer valid in the compressed file. Submit the original when the signature has to be verified.