How to compress a PDF
Make a PDF smaller for email attachments, website uploads and application forms.
The quick way
- Open the Compress PDF tool.
- Choose your PDF.
- Download the smaller file.
Why PDFs get large
The usual suspects are high-resolution images and scans, embedded fonts, and files saved without optimization. A scanned document of a few pages can easily be tens of megabytes.
What compression can and can't do
Compression rewrites the PDF more efficiently. If the file was saved without optimization, savings can be significant. If the PDF is mostly large scans, the gain is smaller — the images themselves are the weight.
If it's still too big
- Split the PDF and send only the pages that matter with the Split PDF tool.
- Remove pages you don't need with Remove PDF pages.
- Check the upload limit — many forms accept more than you think.