Compress a PDF Online Free
Shrink PDF file size by recompressing pages at your chosen quality.
Large PDFs are a common problem for email attachments and upload size limits — compressing trades some visual fidelity for a substantially smaller file, which is often exactly the right trade for sharing purposes.
Why compressed PDFs lose selectable text
This compression method rasterizes each page (converts it to an image) at your chosen quality level, then rebuilds the PDF from those images — this is highly effective at reducing file size but means the resulting document's text is no longer selectable or searchable, only visually identical.
Frequently asked questions
Which quality setting should I use?
"Recommended" balances a meaningful size reduction with minimal visible quality loss for most documents — use "Extreme" only when file size is the absolute priority, since text and images will show more visible compression.
Will compression affect how the PDF prints?
At recommended or light quality settings, printed output usually still looks acceptable — heavily compressed PDFs may show more visible quality loss when printed at large sizes.