Compress PDF

How to compress a PDF

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   Step 1: Select your PDFs

   Drop up to 5 PDF files on the page, paste them, or choose them from your device, your Google Drive or your Dropbox.

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   Step 2: Choose a level

   Less compression keeps images closest to the original. Recommended suits most files. Extreme compression gives the smallest file.

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   Step 3: Download your PDF

   The download starts on its own. Several files come back as one ZIP, and each file is listed on its own as well.

Features

• Three compression levels. Pick how far to go, from a light pass to the smallest file we can make.

• Up to 5 files at once. Add up to 5 PDF files and download the results together as one ZIP.

• Size before and after. Every result shows the size before, the size after and how much smaller the file is.

• Never larger than before. If compressing cannot make a file smaller, you get the original back unchanged.

• Works on a phone. The page works on a phone, a tablet or a computer, with touch or a keyboard.

When to compress a PDF

Four jobs this tool handles every day.

• A file too large to email. Most email services stop at about 20 MB. Compressing a scan or a report full of photos usually brings it under.

• An upload form that refuses your file. Job portals and visa forms often cap uploads at a few MB. Try Recommended first, then Extreme compression.

• A scan of several pages. Scanned pages are pictures of paper, so they are the files that shrink the most.

• A report full of photos. Photos take up most of the room in a PDF. Compressing them cuts the size and leaves the text sharp.

Tips for a smaller file

What to try when the first result is not small enough.

• Start with Recommended. It is the level most files need. Move to Extreme compression only if you are still over the limit.

• Run it again. After a result, Try stronger compression runs the same file at the next level, starting from your original.

• Check the result before you send it. Open the compressed file and look at the small print at full size. Extreme compression softens images.

• Drop the pages you do not need. Splitting a long PDF first often saves more than any level here, and it keeps the pages you kept at full quality.

Limits worth knowing

All of it is true today, and better read here than after an upload.

• File size and count. Each PDF can be up to 50 MB, and up to 5 files at a time. Split a larger file first.

• Images lose some detail. Pictures and scanned pages are saved again as JPEG at a lower quality and size. Text and drawings are not touched.

• Some files cannot shrink. A PDF that is mostly text may not get smaller at all. If we cannot shrink it, you get your original back.

• Some images are left alone. A logo or signature with a transparent background, and any image saved in CMYK, are copied across untouched.

• The first file can be slow. Our server sleeps when nobody is using it. Waking it up can take up to a minute, and the page says so.

• Fair use. Our free server allows 30 jobs in 10 minutes for each visitor. Each file counts as one job.

Where your file goes

Compress PDF runs on our server, because a browser cannot compress the images inside a PDF well. Your file is sent over an encrypted connection and deleted right after your result is sent. We do not keep copies, we do not sell or share your files, and we do not add watermarks. A file you pick from Google Drive or Dropbox is downloaded into your browser first, then handled like a file from your device. For Google Drive we ask for the drive.file permission only, which covers the files you pick with Optimax PDF and the files we save there for you.

What we collect, and what we do not, is set out in our Privacy Policy.

Frequently asked questions