Compress PDF guides
Learn why a PDF is large, when lossless compression helps, and what you give up when you must hit an exact file size.
Guides in Compress PDF
How to Compress a PDF Without Losing Quality
Lossless compression shrinks a PDF without lowering image resolution or flattening pages. What it can and cannot do, and when a size limit forces a trade.
How to Reduce a PDF to 100 KB
Under a 100 KB limit, every page gets a tiny share. This worked example shows the budget, what to cut first, and how to judge the result by readability.
How to Make a PDF Smaller
Work out what is taking up space in a PDF, then pick the fix that matches: lossless compression, page removal, splitting, or an exact size target.
How to Reduce PDF Size for Email
Email encoding makes attachments bigger in transit, so a file that fits on disk can bounce. How to choose a target, and when to split instead of compress.
How to Reduce a PDF to 200 KB
200 KB suits a short form or a few clean scans. A checklist for getting there, and for spotting documents that will not fit at a readable quality.
How to Compress a Scanned PDF
A scanned PDF is images, so shrinking it means lowering resolution or quality. How to set a target, what to check, and what happens to OCR text.
Why Is My PDF Still Large After Compression?
Barely smaller, or bigger than before? A checklist for PDFs that will not shrink: image-heavy pages, already optimized files, and targets set too small.
Lossless vs Target-Size PDF Compression
Lossless compression keeps text, links and forms but may save little. Target-size compression goes far smaller by recompressing images. Both, side by side.