Compress a PDF
Compress your PDF so it fits as an attachment. The saving is announced before the export, and you choose the trade-off between size and image quality.
Free · 100% local — nothing is uploaded- 1Open your PDF.
- 2Choose the compression level.
- 3Download the lighter file.
How to compress a PDF
Open the document, choose the trade-off between size and quality, and look at the saving announced before you export: nobody should download the same file three times to find the right setting. Compression acts first on what weighs — the images, resampled and recompressed — then on what no longer serves: partially embedded fonts, orphaned objects, structure data gone useless. Text stays text, so it stays searchable and crisp in print. This is the action that settles email’s commonest annoyance: an attachment refused for going over the mail server’s limit. And it happens inside your browser, without uploading a document that is, by definition, too heavy to send. An attachment refused by a mail server almost always goes through after this setting.
Getting under 2 MB for an email
Most mail servers accept 20 to 25 MB, but many official forms stop at 2 MB, sometimes at 1 MB. A document made mostly of text goes very low with no visible loss. A file made of scans is a stack of photographs: that is where the setting counts, and where you should look at the result on screen before sending. If the weight comes from an excessive number of pages, splitting the document or removing the useless pages often does better than compressing.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly happens?
Images are resampled and recompressed, useless objects removed, streams rewritten. The text itself is left alone: it stays crisp and searchable.
Is there a size limit?
No service limit, since there is no service. A hundred-megabyte file goes through on a computer; a phone, on the other hand, may run out of memory on very large documents.
Does the quality drop much?
It depends on the document: text loses nothing, photos lose what you agree to let them lose. The resulting size is shown before you download.
Can I compress without any loss of quality?
On a text document, yes: streams are rewritten and useless objects removed, without touching the rendering. On photos, any compression trades size for detail — the trade is yours to set.
How do I compress a scanned PDF?
That is the case where the saving is greatest: a scan is nothing but images, and it is they that get resampled. Choose the level that keeps the text legible on screen — the result shows before you download.