Compress PDF

Compress PDF shrinks a PDF's file size so it is easier to email, upload, or store. Many email providers reject attachments over 20 or 25 MB, and government portals, job boards, and school platforms often cap PDF uploads too. The tool re-renders each page as a compressed JPEG image at your chosen quality, then rebuilds a smaller PDF from those images. It works especially well on scanned contracts, photographed receipts, or files with large embedded pictures, where most of the size comes from images rather than text. A 40 MB scanned lease agreement, for example, can often shrink to a few megabytes at medium quality while staying readable on screen and in print.

Real estate agents shrink scanned lease agreements before emailing them to clients. Job seekers compress resumes and portfolios so they fit application portals with strict upload limits. Students and researchers reduce scanned lab reports or textbook chapters before submitting them through a course website. Small businesses compress invoice and receipt scans before archiving thousands of them in cloud storage. In each case the goal is the same: keep the document readable while cutting the file size enough to attach, upload, or store without hitting a limit.

The tool renders each page to a JPEG image at your selected quality, then rebuilds a new PDF from those images. This approach works best on scanned or image-heavy PDFs, since most of the reduction comes from compressing pictures rather than text.

Use High for documents you might print or that contain fine detail, Medium for everyday sharing and email, and Low when file size matters more than image quality, such as a quick preview copy.

Usually no. Because this method turns each page into an image, selectable text, links, and form fields from the original PDF will not remain interactive in the compressed copy.

Some PDFs are already well compressed or made mostly of vector text and line art rather than images. Re-rendering those pages as JPEGs can add size instead of removing it, so compression helps most with scan-heavy or photo-heavy files.

No. Rendering, compression, and rebuilding the PDF all happen in your browser. Justools does not receive or store your document.

One PDF up to 25 MB and 200 pages per job, matching our other PDF tools.