Reduce PDF size online, free
An upload box says maximum 200 KB and your scanned certificate is 3 MB. An email bounces because the attachment is too heavy. A WhatsApp document takes forever to send. In each case you need to reduce PDF size, and quickly.
This tool lets you compress PDF online free, with no account, no watermark and no daily limit. You can reduce PDF size online free for one file or for twenty in a row. The page shows the original size, the new size and the percentage saved.
What is Compress PDF, and why compress a PDF at all?
What is compress PDF? It means rewriting a PDF so it takes up fewer kilobytes while looking the same, or nearly the same, on screen. A PDF compressor online does this mostly by shrinking the pictures inside the file. Scans and photos are usually stored at a far higher resolution than a screen or an office printer needs. Lowering that resolution – called downsampling – removes most of the weight. Text is left alone, so it stays sharp and selectable, and you can still search and copy it.
Why compress PDF files instead of sending them as they are? Because almost every place you send a document has a ceiling: portals reject big uploads, email servers bounce heavy attachments, and a 20 MB scan eats mobile data on both ends. A smaller file uploads faster, opens faster on a phone, and takes less space in your inbox and cloud drive. The one reason to hold back is print quality, and the Light level covers that.
Can I compress PDF files of any kind?
Yes, any PDF up to 100 MB. How much it shrinks depends on what is inside. Scanned documents and photo-heavy files often drop by 50 to 90 percent. A text-only PDF exported from a word processor is already small and has little left to remove. If the tool cannot make your file smaller, it returns the original instead of a bigger or damaged copy, and tells you so.
Compress PDF to 100kb, 200kb or 500kb for form uploads
Exam, job and government portals are strict about document size. Recruitment forms, college admission portals, scholarship sites and bank KYC pages commonly ask for a PDF under 100 KB, 200 KB or 500 KB. Guessing a quality level and checking the result again and again wastes time.
Use the Target size in KB box instead. Type the limit and click the button. The tool tries progressively stronger settings until the file fits under your number, then stops – so you keep as much quality as the limit allows. It is far quicker than trial and error.
Reduce PDF size to 100kb or 200kb
To compress PDF to 100kb, type 100 in the target box. To compress PDF into 200kb, type 200. These are tight limits, so be realistic. A one or two page scan of a mark sheet, Aadhaar or PAN card usually gets there and stays readable. To reduce PDF size to 100kb for a ten-page colour scan is often impossible without turning it to mush. When the target cannot be reached, you get the smallest file the tool could make and a clear note saying it did not get under the limit.
If you must reduce PDF size to 200kb and the file still misses, cut what you do not need. Use extract only the pages you need to drop extra pages, or crop the PDF margins to trim wide scanner borders, then compress again.
Compress PDF to 300kb or 500kb
Mid-range limits are much more forgiving. To compress PDF to 300kb, enter 300; to compress PDF to 500kb, enter 500. A scanned document of three to six pages normally fits at readable quality. If you need to reduce PDF size below 500kb for a longer file, scanning in grayscale instead of colour before you start makes a big difference. Whether the portal says compress PDF under 500 KB, below 500 KB or max 500 KB, you type the same number – and the same PDF compressor to 500kb works for any other figure too.
Reduce PDF size to 1mb or 2mb for email and sharing
Email systems, office software and college portals often set limits in megabytes. The target box works in KB, so you just convert: 1 MB is about 1,000 KB and 2 MB is about 2,000 KB. When you need to reduce PDF size in MB, type the figure with three zeros.
To compress PDF to 1mb, enter 1000. Using 1000 rather than 1024 keeps you safely below the line, which helps when a site says to compress PDF within 1 MB or to reduce PDF size below 1 MB. To compress PDF to 2mb, enter 2000; that also covers compress PDF below 2mb wording. If you want to reduce PDF size to 1mb for a long report with many photos, try the Recommended level first – it often lands under the limit without any target at all, and pictures look better.
Compress PDF to a custom size
The target is not limited to round numbers. Compress PDF to a custom size such as 150, 750 or 4500 KB by typing exactly that. The minimum you can enter is 10. Leave the box empty when you have no fixed limit and simply want a lighter file; the chosen level then decides the result.
Compress PDF without losing quality
Every compressor trades some image detail for size. The honest goal is to reduce PDF size without losing quality that you can actually see. Text, lines and vector logos are not touched, so they stay crisp at any zoom. Only the embedded pictures are resampled. For normal reading on a phone or laptop, and for printing on an office printer, the Light and Recommended levels look the same as the original to most eyes.
Light, Recommended or Strong: which level to choose
Pick the level by what the file is for:
- Light – best quality, larger file. Choose this when you want to compress a PDF with high quality: portfolios, brochures, photo books and anything that will be printed. It is the best quality setting when looks matter more than size.
- Recommended – good quality, small file. The right default for email, WhatsApp, office documents and most uploads.
- Strong – smallest file, lower quality. Use this extreme setting to compress a PDF only when a strict limit leaves no choice. Small print inside scanned images may look soft, so check the result before you submit.
Best way to compress PDF file size and keep it readable
The best way to compress PDF file size is to start gentle and go stronger only if you must. Try Recommended, look at the size shown on the results screen, and move to Strong or a target only if it is still too big. Always compress from the original file, not from an already compressed copy – squeezing twice stacks up the quality loss. If you are combining documents, merge PDF files first and compress the final file once.
Compress PDF JPG scans, photos and other content
How much a file shrinks depends on what is inside it. Nearly all the weight in a heavy PDF is pictures: scanned pages, phone photos, screenshots and logos. Text, tables and vector drawings weigh almost nothing.
Photos and scans: where the savings are
When you compress PDF JPG content – a document you made from camera photos or a scanner – the tool lowers the resolution of each picture to what a screen or office printer needs and re-encodes it. A 12-megapixel phone photo of an A4 page is far more than any form needs, which is why such files often drop by 80 percent or more. If the images came from JPG to PDF converter, you can also go back and build the PDF from smaller photos. Need the pictures out of a PDF instead of a smaller PDF? That is a job for PDF to JPG.
Text, video and things that do not shrink
A PDF exported from a word processor is mostly text and fonts, and there is little to remove; a 90 KB file may come back at 85 KB, or unchanged. Searches for compress PDF video usually mean one of two things. If you want to shrink a video file, this is the wrong tool: it handles PDFs only, and a video needs a video compressor. If your PDF has a video or audio clip embedded in it, that clip is left as it is – only the page images are resampled – so the file may stay large. Attach the clip separately and keep the PDF light.
Works on any device – no reduce PDF size app needed
There is no compress PDF app to install and no reduce PDF size app to pay for. The page runs in the browser on Windows, Mac, Chromebook, Android and iPhone. On a phone, select the PDF from Downloads or your Files app, type the limit and tap the button.
Do you have photos of a document rather than a PDF? Build the file with JPG to PDF converter first, then shrink it here to the limit you need.
Compress PDF converter: convert first, then shrink
A compress PDF converter is really two tools in a row. Have a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file that must arrive as a small PDF? Convert it with Word to PDF converter or its sister tools, then bring the PDF here. Have photos of a document rather than a PDF? Build the file with the image converter first – it accepts JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, SVG and iPhone HEIC – then shrink it here to the limit you need.
Is my file safe?
Your PDF travels over an encrypted HTTPS connection, is processed automatically with no person looking at it, and is deleted as soon as the result has been delivered to you. No account is needed, so the file is not tied to your name or email. If a PDF asks for a password on opening, remove it first with unlock a PDF you own, then compress.
Compress PDF offline on Windows, Mac or a phone
This tool cannot compress PDF offline. Compression runs on our server, so you need an internet connection to send the file and get the smaller copy back. If you cannot upload at all – a company rule, or no signal – here is what else works.
Reduce PDF size offline, free, on Windows or Mac
To compress PDF offline on Windows, the built-in trick is Print to PDF: open the file, print it to the Microsoft Print to PDF printer, and the copy is often smaller because images are re-drawn at print resolution. On a Mac, the Preview app has a Reduce File Size filter under Export. Both let you reduce PDF size offline free of charge, but neither shows a before-and-after size or lets you type a target. That compress PDF offline free route is fine for one file; for a portal with a 200 KB limit, the target box here saves a lot of guessing.
Android and iPhone without a connection
Phones have no built-in PDF compressor. What you can do offline is stop the file from being heavy in the first place: scan in grayscale, use the medium photo size in your camera settings, and crop before you save. Then, when you are back online, this page finishes the job using very little data – only the original going up and the smaller file coming down.