How to compress a PDF
- Choose your PDF (up to 50 MB).
- Pick a compression level — Recommended works for most documents.
- Click Compress PDF. Processing usually takes a few seconds.
- Download the smaller file. You'll see exactly how much space was saved.
Meeting upload size limits
Many Indian government and exam portals, job sites and banks cap uploads at 100 KB to 2 MB, and email attachments are usually limited to 20–25 MB. Scanned documents are the usual problem: a phone scan can be several MB per page. Compression resamples the images inside the PDF to a sensible resolution, which often reduces size by more than half with no visible difference on screen.
Compression levels explained
| Level | Image resolution | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Strong | 72 dpi | Strict portal limits; viewing on screen only |
| Recommended | 150 dpi | Email, sharing, printing at home |
| Light | 300 dpi | Documents that will be professionally printed |
Text, vector graphics and fonts stay sharp at every level — only embedded images are resampled.
Still too big?
- Try the Strong level.
- Remove pages you don't need, or split a long document and upload the parts separately if the portal allows it.
- For photographed documents, crop the photos before making the PDF with JPG to PDF, then compress the result.
Your privacy
Compression needs server processing, so your file is uploaded over HTTPS. It's handled automatically, never shared, and both the original and the compressed copy are deleted from our server within one hour.
Frequently asked questions
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends on the content. PDFs made from scans or photos often shrink by 50–90%, because the images inside are resampled. PDFs that are mostly text are usually already small and shrink much less.
Which compression level should I choose?
Recommended (150 dpi images) suits most documents and stays readable on screen and when printed at home. Strong (72 dpi) gives the smallest files for strict upload limits. Light (300 dpi) keeps print quality.
Is it safe to upload my PDF?
Your file is sent over an encrypted connection, processed automatically without anyone viewing it, and permanently deleted from our server within 1 hour, along with the compressed copy.
Why didn't my PDF get smaller?
It was probably already optimised — for example a text-only PDF exported from Word. If compression would make the file larger, you get the original back unchanged.
Last updated: 23 September 2026Suggest an improvement · Report a problem