Compress PDF
Get scanned and photo PDFs under an attachment limit. Pick resolution and quality; the new size shows immediately.
Which PDFs get smaller
Scans, photo-heavy handouts and collections of screenshots. Those carry a large image per page, and re-rendering each page as a JPEG at a sensible resolution typically cuts 70–90%. A text PDF exported from a word processor is already small; this method will not shrink it and may make it larger.
What you lose
Each page becomes a picture, so text can no longer be selected, searched or copied. Links and bookmarks are dropped. A scan is a picture anyway, so nothing is lost; for a document you need to search, keep the original.
Choosing resolution and quality
150 DPI at quality 72 gives 200–400 KB per A4 page and reads well on screen and in ordinary printing. Use 200 DPI for contracts with small print, 100 DPI for messaging. Below quality 60, text edges start to smear.
Grayscale
If stamp or highlighter colors do not matter, grayscale saves another 20–40% at the same quality. Keep color for colored stamps and charts.
Getting under 10 MB
Start at 150 DPI · 72 and check the size. If still too big, lower quality to 60, then drop to 100 DPI. Beyond that, splitting the document in two with Split PDF beats degrading quality further.
Tips for common situations
Use 150 DPI for Submission Forms
When portal upload limits block your scanned PDF, start at 150 DPI with quality around 60–75. This setting preserves text legibility while substantially reducing file size for most government and recruitment portals.
Pair Low DPI with Grayscale for Invoices
Smartphone receipt photos carry unnecessarily high resolution. Select 100–150 DPI and enable Grayscale for monochrome invoices to strip colour data and achieve a further size reduction beyond DPI adjustment alone.
Lower Quality Gradually for Email Limits
Most email providers cap attachments between 10 MB and 25 MB. Start the quality slider at 75 and reduce in small increments until the output fits, so you avoid degrading readability more than necessary.
Tried with a sample file
Screens and numbers from actually running this tool with a sample file with no personal data (2026-10-06, Chromium-based browser on a Mac). Results vary with your input and device.
A sample scanned PDF with no personal data (6 A4 pages, 3.73 MB) came out at 927 KB with the defaults of 150 DPI and quality 72 — 76% smaller. Everything ran inside the browser; nothing was uploaded.
Pages are re-drawn as JPEG images, so text in the result can no longer be selected or searched. Keep the original.
At 100 DPI with grayscale on, the same file dropped to 478 KB (87% smaller) — about half of the 150 DPI result (927 KB), but small print starts to blur when zoomed. Use it only when the attachment limit is tight.
Frequently asked
Is my document uploaded?
No. Rendering the pages and assembling the new PDF happen entirely in your browser.
Can it shrink a text PDF?
Not this tool. Large text PDFs usually carry full font files several times; re-exporting from the original program with font subsetting is the right fix.
Many pages?
Each page is rendered, so 100 pages can take tens of seconds. Progress is shown.
Will text remain selectable and searchable in the compressed PDF?
No, because pages are re-rendered into JPEG images, text in the output PDF cannot be selected or searched.
What settings should I change to achieve maximum file size reduction?
Lowering the DPI to 100, reducing the quality slider (down to 40), or enabling grayscale will yield the smallest file sizes.
How do I prevent the output PDF from becoming too blurry?
You can select a higher resolution such as 200 DPI and increase the image quality slider.
Will compression fail if my internet connection is slow or unstable?
No, since all processing runs entirely within your browser without file uploads, internet speed does not affect the compression process.