Many online procedures set a file size limit: 2 MB, 5 MB, 10 MB… and your PDF is just over it. Compressing it is the fastest way to fix this without rebuilding the document. Here we explain why PDFs get so heavy and how to reduce their size while keeping decent quality.
Why is a PDF so heavy?
In most cases, a PDF's weight does not come from the text but from the images it contains, especially high-resolution photos or scanned pages. A pure-text document is tiny; a PDF with several phone photos can easily reach tens of megabytes. That is why compressing a PDF essentially means optimising those images.
How to compress your PDF
- 1Upload the PDF you want to shrink.
- 2The tool optimises the internal images while keeping them readable.
- 3Download the compressed PDF and check the reduction percentage.
Related tool
Compress Files
Tricks to shrink the size even more
- If you only need some pages, split it first with our split-PDF tool.
- Scan documents in black and white when colour adds nothing.
- Avoid inserting full-resolution photos if the PDF is for screen use.
Frequently asked questions
How much smaller does it get?
Is the quality loss noticeable?
Is it free and private?
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Tools that may help you
Compress Files
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PDF to Images
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Split PDF
Extract specific pages from a PDF. Download only the pages you need.