Compress PDF

A PDF compressor reduces the byte size of a PDF document by processing its internal data streams. The most impactful compression target is embedded images, which typically account for 80–90% of a large PDF's file size. Text, fonts, and structure data are already stored in efficient formats.

This compressor uses Ghostscript, an open-source PDF processing engine used in commercial printing and document workflows worldwide. It applies the /screen, /ebook, or /printer PDFSETTINGS profile depending on your chosen quality level, each representing a different trade-off between file size and image fidelity.

Choose "Small file" for maximum compression when the PDF is for online viewing only — this reduces images to 72 DPI and applies the most aggressive stream compression. Choose "Balanced" for general-purpose sharing where occasional printing is likely. Choose "High quality" to keep 300 DPI images for documents that will be printed.

After compression, verify the output in a PDF viewer before distributing it. If text appears blurry (which is unusual) or image quality is insufficient, re-compress at a higher quality setting. For very large PDFs where only certain sections are needed, use Split PDF first to isolate the relevant pages before compressing.