How to Compress a PDF File Online for Free (Step by Step)

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Big PDF files are hard to email and slow to upload. The good news: you can shrink a PDF in seconds, for free, without installing any software.

Why are some PDF files so big?

Most large PDFs contain scanned pages or high-resolution photos. Every page is stored as a big image, so a 20-page scan can easily reach 30 MB.

How to compress a PDF online

  1. Open our free Compress PDF tool.
  2. Select your PDF or drag it into the box.
  3. Choose a compression level: Recommended works for most files.
  4. Click Compress PDF and download the smaller file.

Is it safe?

Yes. The file is processed inside your own browser and never uploaded to our server.

More free PDF tools

Need to join files? Try Merge PDF. Want to edit the text? Use PDF to Word.