Compress a PDF without blurry text
Big PDFs are almost always big because of photos and scans. We shrink those, repack the rest losslessly, and leave text and vector graphics exactly as they are, so words stay crisp at any zoom.
- ✓Three levels, from lossless to smallest
- ✓Text and fonts are never rasterized
- ✓If it can't get smaller, you get your original back
How to use Compress PDF
- 1
Add your PDF
Drop the file you need to shrink.
- 2
Pick a level
Light is lossless. Balanced resizes very large images and is the best default. Strong gives the smallest file with lighter images.
- 3
Download
You see the old and new size. If the file was already as small as it can be, your original comes back unchanged.
What actually gets smaller
Balanced resizes images larger than 2000 pixels on their long side and stores them as JPEG. Strong uses 1400 pixels and a lower JPEG quality. Streams and objects are repacked for every level. An image is only replaced when the new version is really smaller.
What never changes
Text stays text, in its original embedded font. Vector graphics, tables and lines are untouched. Scans made of special black and white encodings (JBIG2, CCITT) and images with unusual colour setups are left as they are.
Hitting an upload limit?
Try Balanced first. If the file is still too big, run Strong. For scanned documents, most of the size is the scan itself, so Strong usually makes the biggest difference.
Questions people ask
+Will my PDF look worse after compressing?
Light never changes how anything looks. Balanced keeps images sharp on screen and in normal prints. Strong trades some photo detail for size. Text is never affected at any level.
+Why didn't my PDF get smaller?
PDFs made only of text and vector graphics are usually already compact. When compression can't beat the original, we give you the original instead of a bigger file.
+Can I compress a password protected PDF?
Unlock it first with Unlock PDF, compress it, then protect it again if you need to.
+Are my files kept on your server?
No. The file is processed in memory for this one request and the result is sent straight back to your browser. Nothing is written to storage and nothing is shared.
Ready to fix your PDF?
Free, in your browser, and it takes about a minute. No account needed.