How to compress a PDF file

PDF files can get large, especially when they contain many images or scans. Emailing them becomes impossible, and uploading takes forever. With the PDF compressor on PDFrust you can shrink the file in your browser.

Why are PDF files sometimes so large?

Most large PDFs contain photos, scans, or high-resolution images. Text-only PDFs are usually small. With scans, each page is stored as an image, which quickly adds up to several megabytes per page.

How much smaller will it get?

With image-heavy PDFs and scans, a 50% reduction or more is common. The strongest setting can reduce a 10 MB file to less than 2 MB. For a PDF that already contains only text, the gain is smaller.

Which compression strength should I choose?

Light: minimal quality loss, suitable if you still want to edit or print the PDF at high quality. Medium: good balance for most purposes. Strong: the smallest possible file, ideal for email or uploading, but text is no longer selectable afterwards.

Will text be lost?

With light and medium compression, text stays selectable. With strong compression, pages are converted to images, after which text can no longer be selected or searched. Choose strong compression only if that is not an issue.