PDF Compressor
PDF ToolsShrink a PDF by recompressing its embedded images
Upload a PDF to shrink its embedded photos and scanned pages — vector graphics and text stay untouched.
About the PDF Compressor
Upload a PDF, pick a compression level, and download a smaller file — the tool recompresses embedded photos and scanned pages while leaving text and vector graphics untouched. Everything runs locally in your browser.
Large PDFs are almost always large because of embedded images, not text — a scanned document or a report full of high-resolution photos can easily run into tens of megabytes. Targeting just the images, rather than flattening the whole page to an image (as some 'compress PDF' tools do), keeps the document's text selectable and searchable after compression.
How to Use the PDF Compressor
Upload a PDF and choose a compression level — Low, Recommended, or High.
Click Compress and review the size comparison and image count.
Download the compressed file.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this actually shrink the file?
Most PDF bloat comes from embedded photos and scanned pages. This tool finds JPEG images inside the PDF and re-encodes them at a lower quality and, if they're larger than needed, a lower resolution — the text and vector graphics around them are left completely untouched and stay selectable.
Which compression level should I pick?
Low keeps images closest to their original quality with a modest size reduction. Recommended is a good default for most documents. High gives the biggest size reduction but visible quality loss on photos — good for drafts or when file size matters more than image fidelity.
Will this ever make my file bigger, or ruin an image?
No — the tool only replaces an image when the recompressed version is actually smaller, and it deliberately skips image types it isn't confident it can re-encode correctly (CMYK, indexed-color, transparent/masked, or non-JPEG images), leaving those exactly as they were rather than risk corrupting them.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No — every step, from decoding images to re-encoding and rebuilding the PDF, happens locally in your browser.
Why did compression report 0 images recompressed?
Some PDFs simply don't have compressible images — a text-only document, or one whose images are already in a format the tool deliberately skips (see above). In that case there's little size to gain from this approach, since the bloat isn't coming from JPEG images in the first place.