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Converts on your device — your PDF is never uploadedCompress PDF — Hit an Exact Size, Keep Your Text
Shrink a PDF to an exact size limit — 100 KB, 200 KB, 1 MB or whatever a form demands. The default Smart mode recompresses the images inside your document and leaves text and vector graphics completely untouched, so the text stays selectable and searchable. Everything runs in your browser: no upload, no watermark, no sign-up, no daily limit.
Why PDFs Get So Large
Almost always, it is images. A page of text is a few kilobytes: characters, positions and a font reference. A photograph or a scan of that same page is a grid of millions of pixels — often several megabytes.
Phone cameras made this worse. A photographed document at 12 megapixels carries about forty times more data than an office scanner produced twenty years ago, while upload limits stayed exactly where they were. That is the whole problem, and it is why compression targets images rather than text.
Smart or Maximum?
| Smart (default) | Maximum | |
|---|---|---|
| What it changes | Only the embedded images | Re-renders whole pages |
| Text afterwards | Selectable & searchable | Flattened to pixels |
| Works on text-only PDFs | Very little to gain | Yes |
| Typical reduction (scans) | 60–90% | Often more |
| Layout & vectors | Untouched | Rasterised |
Start with Smart. It is the right answer for the files people actually need to compress — scanned applications, photographed contracts, image-heavy reports — and it costs you nothing in text quality. Switch to Maximum only when Smart cannot reach your target, or when the PDF has no recompressible images at all (the tool detects that case and says so).
Measured Results
From testing on a 1.1 MB scanned-style document, using Smart mode with the structure and text preserved throughout:
| Setting | Result | Reduction | Looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality 80, max 2000 px | 455 KB | 59% | Indistinguishable |
| Quality 70, max 1600 px | 263 KB | 76% | Excellent on screen and in print |
| Quality 50, max 1200 px | 123 KB | 89% | Fine on screen, softer in print |
| Quality 30, max 800 px | 47 KB | 96% | Visibly compressed — last resort |
Your own results depend on what is in the file. These figures are a realistic guide rather than a promise, which is why the tool always shows you the actual before-and-after rather than a percentage claim.
Meeting a Specific Limit
Target mode does the trial-and-error for you. Enter a limit — or tap 100 KB, 200 KB, 500 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB — and the tool works through progressively stronger settings, stopping at the first one that fits so you keep the best quality available within your budget.
| Where | Typical limit | Set target to |
|---|---|---|
| Government & visa portals | 100–500 KB | 100 KB / 200 KB |
| University applications | 1–2 MB | 1 MB |
| Job application systems | 2–5 MB | 2 MB |
| Email (Gmail / Outlook.com) | 25 MB / 20 MB | 10 MB |
Grayscale: the Overlooked Trick
If you are compressing a scanned text document, switch grayscale on. A colour scan stores three channels of data for what is essentially black ink on white paper — and the colour information is carrying nothing but scanner noise and paper tint. Converting to grayscale typically removes another 20–40% with no loss of readability at all.
Leave it off for anything where colour carries meaning: photographs, charts, highlighted text, stamps, signatures in blue ink.
What Compresses Well — and What Does Not
| Type of PDF | Expect | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Scanned documents | 70–90% smaller | Entirely images, usually at needless resolution |
| Photographed pages from a phone | 80–95% smaller | Enormous camera images inside |
| Reports with photos and charts | 40–80% smaller | Mixed content; images dominate the size |
| Text-only documents | A few percent | Nothing large to compress |
| Already-compressed PDFs | Little or nothing | The saving was already taken |
If a file is already optimised, the tool says so rather than handing you a “compressed” copy that is the same size or larger. Nothing is ever made bigger: each image is only replaced if the new version is genuinely smaller.
Is It Safe and Private?
Yes, and you can verify it: load this page, disconnect from the internet, and compress a PDF. It still works, because the document is parsed and rebuilt by your own browser. No upload, no account, no watermark, and no copy of your file on anyone else’s server — which matters when the document is a passport scan, a bank statement or a signed contract.
Troubleshooting
“No recompressible images found”
Your PDF is text or vector based, so Smart mode has nothing to work on. The tool switches to Maximum automatically — but understand the trade: it will shrink the file by flattening pages into images, and the text will no longer be selectable.
The compressed file is barely smaller
Check the “images are” figure shown when you add the file. If images are a small share of the total, the size is coming from fonts, vectors or embedded data, and image compression cannot reach it.
It could not reach my target
Try grayscale, then Maximum mode. If it still will not fit, the document genuinely has more content than the limit allows — splitting it into two files is often the practical answer.
The PDF is password-protected
Open it in a viewer with the password, save an unprotected copy, then compress that.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I compress a PDF?
Drop your PDF onto the upload area, choose a target size such as 100 KB or 200 KB (or pick a quality level yourself), then press Compress. The tool recompresses the images inside your PDF and shows a before-and-after comparison before you download. Everything happens in your browser - nothing is uploaded.
Will the text still be selectable and searchable?
Yes, in Smart mode, which is the default. It recompresses only the embedded images and leaves text and vector graphics completely untouched, so you can still select, search and copy text afterwards. Maximum mode is different: it re-renders whole pages as images, which compresses further but turns text into pixels.
Can I compress a PDF to exactly 100 KB or 200 KB?
Yes. Choose Target size, enter or tap the limit, and the tool works through progressively stronger settings until the file fits, keeping the best quality that does. It reports the size achieved, and tells you plainly if the target is not reachable.
Why did my PDF barely get smaller?
Because most of its size is not images. A PDF built from text, fonts and vector graphics has very little for an image compressor to work on. The tool shows you what percentage of your file is images as soon as you add it, so you know what to expect before pressing anything.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The file is parsed and rebuilt entirely inside your browser. It is never uploaded, never stored and never seen by anyone - which matters, because the PDFs people need to compress are usually applications, contracts, statements and scans.
How much smaller will my PDF get?
For scanned and image-heavy PDFs, 60-90% is typical. In testing on a 1.1 MB scanned-style document, moderate settings gave 263 KB (76% smaller) and stronger settings 123 KB (89% smaller), with the page structure and text intact throughout.
What is the difference between Smart and Maximum modes?
Smart recompresses the JPEG images embedded in the PDF and leaves everything else alone, so text stays selectable. Maximum re-renders every page as a flat image: it shrinks any PDF, including text-only ones, but the result is a picture of your document. Use Smart first and switch only if you must go smaller.
Does grayscale help?
A lot, for scanned text. Colour scans carry three channels of data for what is essentially black ink on white paper. Converting to grayscale often removes another 20-40% with no loss of readability.
Will compression reduce quality?
Images are re-encoded, so yes - that is where the saving comes from. At moderate settings the difference is hard to see on screen. In Smart mode text and vector graphics are not touched at all, so they stay perfectly sharp no matter how hard the images are compressed.
Is there a file size limit?
No artificial limit. Because processing happens on your device, memory is the only real constraint. Very large scanned documents of several hundred pages may be slow on a phone.
Can I compress a password-protected PDF?
Not directly. Open it in a PDF viewer with the password, save an unprotected copy, then compress that. No legitimate tool should bypass document encryption.
Does it work offline?
Yes, once the page has loaded. Nothing is transmitted, so the compression itself needs no connection.