compress

Compress PDF

Shrink PDF file size with quality options

About this tool

Large PDFs are often bloated by high-resolution images embedded inside. Our compress tool re-renders each page at your chosen DPI (72 for screen, 150 for ebook, 300 for print), then re-encodes as JPEG to dramatically reduce file size. Perfect for email attachments or web uploads.

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Why use a compress pdf tool?

PDF files balloon for two reasons: oversized images and uncompressed streams. Compressing them shrinks the file without changing the content — critical for email attachments (most providers cap at 25 MB), portal uploads (often 5 MB or less), and sharing on slow networks. ShrinkTo's compressor is built for the exam-form and email-attachment use case where you need a specific size target.

Common use cases

Email attachments

Get under Gmail/Outlook attachment limits (typically 25 MB).

Government portals

Many Indian portals (UPSC, Aadhaar, banking) cap PDFs at 1-5 MB.

Archive size reduction

Compress 50 invoices from 200 MB total down to under 50 MB.

WhatsApp document share

WhatsApp limits files to 100 MB — squeeze in just under.

How to compress a PDF

Upload your PDF. Drop a file or browse. Compression is local — no upload to our servers.

Pick compression level. Light, medium, or aggressive. Aggressive shrinks more but reduces image quality.

Click Compress. Images inside the PDF are re-encoded; streams are gzipped.

Download the smaller PDF. You see before/after sizes so you know exactly what was saved.

Frequently asked questions

Will text become unreadable?

No. Text stays vector-perfect. Only embedded images are re-compressed.

How much will it shrink?

Image-heavy PDFs often compress 50-80%. Text-only PDFs may shrink only slightly because text is already small.

Is compression lossless?

Image compression is lossy (the trade-off for size). Text and structure are preserved exactly.

Can I compress to a specific KB target?

Yes — pick aggressive mode for the smallest output. For exact KB targets, our image compressor offers binary-search KB targeting.

Are scanned PDFs handled differently?

Scanned PDFs are essentially images bundled into a PDF, so they compress very well.

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Privacy by design.

All processing happens in your browser using JavaScript libraries. Your files never reach any server. No accounts, no tracking, no data retention.