Compress PDF - reduce file size without wrecking quality
Make a heavy PDF small enough to email, upload or archive while keeping it readable.
Drag files here or click the button
Maximum file size: 100 MB
No account, no watermark. Your files are not stored on our servers after processing.
Most oversized PDFs are oversized for one reason: images. A brochure exported at print resolution, a contract scanned at 600 dpi, a slide deck full of screenshots - each page carries far more pixel data than a screen or an email attachment ever needs. Compression rewrites those images at a sensible resolution, strips duplicated resources and drops metadata nobody reads, which is where the megabytes go. Text-only PDFs shrink much less, simply because there was little waste to remove in the first place.
The trade-off is always between size and detail, so it helps to know what the file is for. A 20-page scan going to an upload portal can lose a lot of resolution and still be perfectly legible; a portfolio someone will zoom into should be treated gently. Compress PDF on PDF Guru handles the balance for you, keeps text sharp because text is not an image, and gives you the compressed file to check before you send it anywhere.
How to use Compress PDF online
- 1
Upload the heavy PDF
Drop in a file of up to 100 MB. Scanned documents, image-rich reports and exported presentations are the cases where compression pays off most.
- 2
Let the file be analysed
The tool looks at what is actually making the document large - image resolution, embedded fonts, duplicated objects - instead of applying one blunt setting to everything.
- 3
Compare the result
Check the new size against the original and open the compressed file. Pay attention to small type in scans and to any fine detail in charts.
- 4
Download or try a lighter touch
Save the file if it looks right. If a page lost too much detail, start from the original again - recompressing an already compressed PDF only degrades it further.
When people use this tool
Get under an email attachment limit
Mail servers commonly reject anything over 10 or 25 MB. Compressing a scanned contract usually clears that hurdle in one pass.
Meet an upload cap on a portal
Tax offices, universities and job boards often set hard limits per file. Compression is the fastest route when splitting the document is not allowed.
Publish a faster download
A price list or catalogue on your website loads noticeably quicker at 3 MB than at 40 MB, especially on mobile connections.
Archive years of paperwork
Shrinking scans before they go into long-term storage keeps a decade of invoices from filling a drive or a cloud quota.
What you get
Targeted, not blanket compression
Images are re-encoded where there is real slack, while text and vector graphics are left alone so pages stay crisp.
Text stays searchable
Compression does not flatten your document into pictures, so you can still select, copy and search the text afterwards.
Works on scans
Photographed and scanned pages are usually the biggest offenders, and also the ones where the size drop is most dramatic.
Free and private
No signup, no watermark, and your document is not kept on our servers once you have downloaded the smaller version.