Compress a PDF without uploading it
Add a PDF, choose Screen, Ebook or Print quality, and download a smaller file. Every page is re-rendered on your device — the document never leaves the browser.
Open the compress toolFree · no account · nothing uploaded
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Add the PDF
Drop the file or use Add files. A single PDF at a time — dropping a new one replaces it.
- 02
Pick a quality
Screen for viewing on a phone, Ebook for a good balance, Print when detail matters.
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Compress and download
Press the button. Progress shows the page it is on; the new PDF downloads when it finishes.
How the compression works
Each page is rendered to an image at the resolution you chose and rebuilt into a fresh PDF. That is what shrinks a scan or an image-heavy export from tens of megabytes down to a few.
The trade-off: text that was selectable becomes part of the image. If you need the text layer, do not compress a text PDF — it is already small.
Which PDFs actually get smaller
Big wins: phone scans, photos exported as PDF, slide decks full of images, anything produced by a scanner app.
Little or no change: a PDF that is mostly text (a report, an invoice, a contract). Those are already efficient, and the tool will tell you if it could not beat the original.
Nothing is uploaded
Compression runs entirely in your browser using pdf.js to render and pdf-lib to write. No server receives the file, so there is no size limit beyond your device’s memory and no copy of your document anywhere else.
Large scanned PDFs — hundreds of pages — can take a minute; the progress indicator shows exactly where it is so you know it has not frozen.
Questions
Is my PDF uploaded to compress it?
No. It is processed in your browser with pdf.js and pdf-lib. Nothing leaves the page.
Why is the text no longer selectable after compressing?
Compression re-renders each page as an image, which is what makes image-heavy PDFs small. A text PDF should not be compressed this way.
How much smaller will my file get?
Scans and photo PDFs often drop by 60–90%. A text-only PDF may barely change — it is already small.
Which quality should I pick?
Screen for phone viewing, Ebook for a balance of size and clarity, Print when fine detail has to survive.
Is there a page or size limit?
No fixed limit. Very large scans can be slow because your device does all the work.