Compress
A PDF brought under the size limit you name, from fifty kilobytes up to ten megabytes, with the page count and every page's own size left exactly as they were. The images on the page shrink; the text stays text, selectable and sharp at any zoom, because nothing here rasterises a page to get it smaller. Works on PDFs up to twenty-five megabytes, one file per run, with the estimate shown before you commit.
Console
compress-pdfNothing is charged for uploading, and nothing runs until you press Run. Sign in to load a file and get an estimate first.
Drop your PDF in, or choose it from disk. Uploading processes nothing and costs nothing — the file is read far enough to size it and count its pages, and never far enough to open one.
Pick the size you need it under: fifty kilobytes up to ten megabytes, eleven steps in all. A file already at or under the size you pick is turned away before anything runs, and the estimate updates as soon as you change your mind.
Run and download. The result is yours for thirty days, the file you uploaded is left exactly as it was, and a run that cannot reach the size you named costs you nothing at all.
Questions
What actually gets smaller?
The images on the page — a scanned page is one large image, and a photograph embedded in an otherwise typed document is another. Each is decoded, shrunk and re-encoded at whatever resolution and quality still fits your target. Text, vector artwork and the page structure itself are never touched, so a page of typed text that already carries no large image may not shrink much further no matter which target you choose.
Which size should I pick?
Whatever limit you were actually handed — a government form's 200 KB cap, an application portal's 500 KB limit, an email attachment's 10 MB ceiling, or a form that simply says 1 MB. Every common limit from 50 KB to 10 MB is on the list, in eleven steps, and the default is 1 MB, the most common general-purpose limit.
How many pages fit under a small target?
It depends heavily on what is on the page, and a scanned page costs far more than typed text once the target gets this small. As a rough guide, a scanned page of small, dense type is the costliest case of all, at roughly 170 KB even at this tool's lightest setting: 50 KB and 100 KB hold none, 200 KB about one, 500 KB about two, and 1 MB about five. A photograph or a heavily inked scan comes next, at roughly 71 KB: 50 KB may not hold one, 100 KB about one, 200 KB about two, and 500 KB about seven. A scan that is mostly plain text on a light background — a mostly blank or lightly written sheet — costs the least, at roughly 42 KB: 50 KB fits one at best, 100 KB about two, 200 KB about four, and 500 KB about eleven. A typed document with no scanned images is rewritten like any other, but its text and fonts are never degraded to make it smaller, so it shrinks only a little. A document with more pages than its target allows is refused rather than degraded, and the run costs you nothing.
What happens if my file cannot get that small?
The run fails rather than handing you something too blurry to read. This tool will not cross the point where a scan's text stops being legible, so a file whose images are already about as small as they can be while staying readable — or one with nothing left to shrink at all — is refused before it costs you anything. Picking a larger target, where a larger one exists, is the way forward from there.
Do I need an account?
To run a job, yes. Reading this page does not require one. Signing in is one tap with Google, Apple or GitHub — no password and no email confirmation step — and the files you already uploaded are still there when you come back.
What happens to my files?
Inputs are deleted twenty-four hours after upload and results after thirty days. Deletion means the object is removed from storage, not hidden from your history.