How to Compress a PDF? Shrink Scanned PDFs Online

PDF too large to send? Learn when client-side compression works best, how to balance quality, and why text PDFs may need desktop tools.

Pick a PDF, adjust quality, then compress and download. Lower quality means a smaller file; text may look slightly softer.

This method redraws each page as an image — ideal for scans and photo PDFs, and can cut size a lot.

For text PDFs, text becomes an image and is no longer selectable; use desktop software if you need selectable text.

Compression runs in your browser, so files are never uploaded — safer for sensitive documents.