Many PDF shrinkers work by turning every page into an image. The file gets smaller, but you can no longer select, copy or search the text. This tool avoids that by default: it shrinks only the photos and scans inside the PDF and leaves text, fonts and vector graphics alone.
Step by step
- Open the Compress PDF tool and choose your file.
- Pick a quality level: Smallest file, Balanced (good for email) or Best quality.
- Click Compress PDF. You'll see the before and after size.
- Download the result if it is smaller.
What kinds of PDFs shrink the most
- Scanned documents and PDFs full of photos. Those are mostly large images, which can be re-encoded at a lower quality.
- PDFs exported from slide decks with big pictures.
- Mostly-text PDFs are already small. If there is nothing meaningful to remove, the tool tells you instead of giving you a bigger file.
When you need the smallest possible file
Tick Maximum reduction to turn every page into an image. This can shrink stubborn files further, but the text is no longer selectable or searchable. If you need the text back afterwards, run the result through the OCR tool.
Tips
- Keep your original. Compression loses image detail, and you can't undo it.
- If you need to email a file under a size limit, try Balanced first, then Smallest.
- Scanned a document with your phone? Use black & white in the Scan to PDF tool to get a smaller file from the start.