PDF Compressor
Shrink PDFs two ways: a lossless clean-up that keeps text selectable, or maximum compression that re-renders scanned pages — both entirely in your browser.
How to Compress a PDF in 3 Steps
Drop a PDF
Drag a PDF onto the left pane. The page count and size appear in the header and the first page is previewed.
Choose a Mode
Keep text rewrites the file structure losslessly — text, links and search stay intact; savings are modest. Maximum re-renders every page as a JPEG at the DPI and quality you choose — ideal for scans, where it routinely saves 70–90%.
Compress & Download
Click Compress, watch per-page progress, compare the first page and the sizes, then download. If the result would be larger, the original is kept and you are told.
Which Mode for Which PDF?
| PDF type | Mode | Typical saving | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exported from Word / Docs, mostly text | Keep text | 5–25% | Nothing visible; object streams, duplicate objects and metadata are tidied |
| Scanned pages, photos of documents | Maximum · 110 DPI · 70 | 70–90% | Pages become images; still perfectly readable on screen |
| Slides / brochures with big images | Maximum · 110 DPI · 75 | 50–80% | Text becomes non-selectable; fine for sharing, not for editing |
| Needs printing | Maximum · 150 DPI · 80 | 40–70% | Sharp on paper at A4 / Letter |
| Already optimised (small per page) | Keep text | 0% | Tool detects no gain and keeps the original |
PDF Compressor — Frequently Asked Questions
Why are there two modes?
PDFs are containers: a text PDF is already tiny and only benefits from structural clean-up, while a scanned PDF is a stack of large images that only shrink if they are re-encoded. Keep text is safe for everything; Maximum is for scans and image-heavy files where you can accept flattened pages.
Does Maximum mode remove the text layer?
Yes. Every page is rendered to a JPEG, so text can no longer be selected, searched or read by screen readers, and links stop working. Use Keep text if any of that matters.
Why did Keep text barely change the size?
Because the file was already well-formed and the images in it were already compressed. Only Maximum mode can shrink embedded images — try it with 110 DPI and quality 70.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The document is parsed by pdf-lib and rendered by PDF.js (the same engine Firefox uses) inside your browser. Nothing is transmitted or stored.
Are password-protected PDFs supported?
Encrypted PDFs that open without a password are processed; Maximum mode drops the encryption. PDFs that need a password to open are refused — remove the password first.