Free PDF tool
Shrink a PDF without sending it anywhere
Scanned bundles, photographed annexures and camera-roll PDFs run to tens of megabytes and bounce off e-mail limits. This tool brings them down to size in your browser, keeping the text selectable and the pages searchable.
Your file never leaves your device. The work is done by your browser, on your computer. Nothing is uploaded, stored or logged — close the tab and it is gone.
Good to know
Questions, answered
- How does it make the file smaller?
- Most oversized PDFs are oversized because of their pictures: a scanned page at 300 dpi or a photo straight from a phone. The tool finds every embedded image, scales it down to a size that still reads cleanly on screen and in print, re-encodes it as JPEG and rewrites the file. Text, vector graphics, links, bookmarks and form fields are left untouched, so the result stays searchable and selectable.
- What is the difference between the three levels?
- They set how far images are scaled down and how hard the JPEG encoder squeezes them. Light keeps near-original detail; Balanced is right for e-mailing and filing; Strong gives the smallest file and is fine for scans of typed text, though photographs will visibly soften.
- When should I flatten the pages instead?
- When the first mode barely helps. Files that are mostly fonts, vector drawings or unusual image formats have little for the image optimiser to work on. Flattening redraws each page as a single picture, which always shrinks the file, but the text becomes part of the picture and can no longer be selected, searched or edited. Use it for a copy you only need to read or send, never for the version you file.
- Why did my file not get any smaller?
- Either it is already optimised, or its images use a format the tool deliberately leaves alone (fax-style black-and-white scans, JPEG 2000, indexed colour). The tool never writes an image it cannot decode with certainty, and it never replaces an image with a larger one. Try the flatten mode, or accept that the file is as small as it safely gets.
- Is there a file-size limit?
- No fixed limit. The work happens in your browser, so the practical ceiling is your device’s memory. Files of a few hundred megabytes are fine on a laptop; a phone may struggle past fifty or so.
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