Compress PDF

Light keeps your text selectable and vector graphics sharp. It strips redundant data and re-saves with efficient encoding. Use it for text documents where small savings are fine. Heavy turns each page into a JPG image embedded in a fresh PDF — you lose text selection, but you typically get 60–90% smaller files. Use it for scans, image-heavy reports, or anything where you need the file to be much smaller.

PDFs that were exported from a modern source (Word, Pages, InDesign, Acrobat post-2015) are usually already well-optimised — there is just nothing left to squeeze. Light mode rarely shrinks them by more than 10%. If you need more, switch to heavy mode.

Raise the quality preset. "Smaller" uses ~72 dpi and 60% JPG quality (small files, screen-only). "Balanced" uses ~100 dpi and 75% (good for most things). "High quality" uses ~150 dpi and 85% (sharp for print).

Light mode keeps text as text — your PDF stays searchable and selectable. Heavy mode flattens each page to an image, so the text is no longer selectable or searchable. If text-search matters and you still need big savings, run OCR on the heavy-compressed output in a separate tool.

Server services have purpose-built CPUs running optimised C++ code. Your browser is using JavaScript and your laptop's general-purpose CPU. For most files the difference is seconds. For very large PDFs (50+ pages of scans) it might be a minute. The trade-off: your file never leaves your machine.