Compress a PDF to a smaller file size
Shrink PDFs on your device and keep the text selectable, or hit a target size such as 200 KB for an upload form.
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Text stays text
Keep text shrinks the pictures inside the PDF (photos and scanned pages are resampled to the chosen resolution and re-saved as JPEG), removes duplicate and unused data, and recompresses the file. Text stays selectable and searchable; links, bookmarks and form fields are kept. PDFs that are mostly text shrink less, because text is already compact.
Processed on this device with your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
How it works
Upload forms for jobs, visas, universities and government services usually cap each document, often at a few hundred kilobytes or a megabyte, while a phone scan of a few pages easily reaches 5 to 20 MB. Type the limit you were given, or pick a level, and the tool rebuilds the PDF so it fits.
How it works, honestly: the text is kept first. The photos and scanned pages inside the PDF are resampled to the resolution the page really needs and re-saved as JPEG, duplicate and unused data is removed, and the file is recompressed, so text stays selectable and searchable and links and form fields keep working. Only when that still cannot reach the size you need are the pages turned into images as a last resort; then the text can no longer be selected, searched or copied, and the result tells you so. Keep your original.
Keep text has three levels: Light resamples images sharper than 220 dpi on the page, Recommended those above 150 dpi, Strong those above 110 dpi, each with stronger JPEG compression; lossless screenshots and line art are only converted when that clearly pays off, and masks, CMYK and 1-bit images are left alone. The result lists how many images were re-encoded and the lowest image resolution now in the file. Hit a target size tries Recommended, then Strong, then 72 dpi images, and only then falls back to rendering pages as images, sharing the byte budget across pages by area and reporting the lowest page resolution used. Maximum always renders pages as images. Grayscale often halves the size of scans.
How to use it
- Choose a PDF.
- Keep "Keep text" and pick a level, or choose "Hit a target file size" and type the limit in KB.
- Turn on black and white for scans if colour does not matter.
- Click Compress PDF, read what was changed and the new size, and download.
Frequently asked questions
Are my files uploaded?
No. The file is read and processed by your browser on your device; nothing is sent to a server. The PDF engine is downloaded from this site the first time you use a tool and then runs on your device.
Will the text still be selectable?
In most cases, yes: the tool shrinks the images inside the PDF and cleans up the file, and leaves text, fonts, links and form fields as they are. Only if the size you need cannot be reached that way are the pages turned into pictures, and the result says so clearly. For a scan this changes little, because its pages were pictures already (any OCR text layer is kept in keep-text mode).
What if the PDF hardly gets smaller?
Text-only PDFs made by Word or a web browser are often already compact: text takes very little space and there are no big images to shrink. The tool tells you when nothing could be saved and keeps your original. Turning such pages into images would usually make them bigger, not smaller.
How small can a PDF get?
It depends on how many pages share the budget and how much detail they hold. The tool never shrinks pages below a floor of about 40 dpi and reports the lowest resolution it used; below about 100 dpi small print starts to blur. If a long document will not fit, split it or remove pages you do not need.
Which level should I choose?
Keep text at Recommended suits almost everything: images keep 150 dpi on the page, which prints well. Use Light for documents with detailed photos and Strong for email attachments. Choose Maximum (pages as images) only for scans that must be tiny, since it removes the text.
Related tools
- Compress PDF to 200 KBGet a PDF under 200 KB for an upload form. Text is kept when possible; pages become images only if they must.
- Compress PDF to 1 MBGet a PDF under 1 MB for an upload form. Text is kept when possible; pages become images only if they must.
- Merge PDFCombine several PDFs into one file in the order you choose. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
- Split PDFSplit a PDF by page ranges such as "1-3, 5, 8-", every N pages, or one file per page, and download them individually or as a ZIP.
- Image CompressorShrink JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC photos to an exact file size or quality level.
- Grayscale PDFConvert a colour PDF to black and white shades for printing or smaller scans. Output is image-based.