PDF tools
Reduce the size of a PDF
Works entirely in your browser — your document is never uploaded to a server. Results are measured from the actual output file, and limitations are stated openly.
Pick one or more PDFs. Each file is compressed to its own honest result.
Target size (per file)
Drop PDFs here
processed in your browser — nothing uploads
Reducing PDF file size, honestly
Reducing the size of a PDF starts with knowing which of two documents you hold. Scanned PDFs store each page as a photograph, and re-encoding those photographs at a searched quality-and-scale point brings large scans down towards any reasonable KB target. Digital PDFs — text, fonts, vectors — have nothing wasteful to give up; a 100 KB text document fed to any rasterising compressor usually comes out larger and worse. The tool probes for that text layer and states the situation on the card.
Pick a preset (100 KB through 2 MB) or a custom cap, drop one or many PDFs in, and every file reports its own measured result. Need more than compression? The full PDF tools hub also handles merging, splitting, protection and unlocking. For the numbers and trade-offs, the guide on compressing a scanned PDF properly has the detail.
PDF size questions, answered honestly
How do I reduce PDF file size?
Open the PDF compressor, pick a preset (100 KB to 2 MB) or type a custom target, drop the PDF in, and download the result. It runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, and the card reports the measured output size.
How can I reduce the MB size of a PDF?
Type the megabyte value into the custom field in KB — 5 MB is 5000 KB, 20 MB is 20000 KB. Scanned PDFs compress well; digital-text PDFs usually cannot go much lower without rasterising them.
How do I compress a PDF without losing quality?
Quality is not guaranteed here: compressing a PDF renders its pages to images, so selectable text and infinite zoom are lost. If you must keep those, reduce the file by splitting out the pages you need rather than compressing.
How can I compress a 200 MB PDF to 20 MB?
Set the target to 20000 KB and try it — but a 200 MB file is heavy for a browser, and whether 20 MB is reachable depends entirely on the document. If the result comes back as best effort, splitting out the pages you actually need is the reliable route.
How do I reduce the size of a large PDF?
Large scanned PDFs compress well, because their pages are photographs. Large text PDFs do not: the compressor reports no gain and returns your file untouched rather than handing you a bigger, less readable copy.
How do I manually reduce PDF file size?
The usual manual route is re-saving through a print dialog as PDF at lower quality, which rasterises the pages the same way this tool does. Here the same search is automated and measured, and the card names the settings used.
How do I reduce PDF file size on Mac?
In any modern browser on macOS this tool behaves exactly as it does elsewhere, and nothing is uploaded. macOS Preview can also shrink a PDF through its Quartz filter, but that route is lossy and gives you no measured target.
Why is my PDF still large after compression?
Because a text-based PDF is already efficient — its pages are vectors and fonts, not photographs. The compressor reports no gain and returns the original untouched, instead of producing a larger, less readable file.
Can I compress a PDF to a specific KB or MB size?
Yes. Presets run from 100 KB to 2 MB, and the custom field takes a KB value of 50 or more. What you receive is the smallest result the search could reach under that cap — or a best-effort card explaining why the cap was out of reach.
Is there an alternative to compressing a text PDF?
Yes. If the recipient only needs some pages, split the document and send fewer pages. If it is already optimised, the tool reports “no gain” instead of re-encoding for nothing.