Smallpdf is the most popular online compression tool for PDF documents. There has been so much demand that we offer two different compression strengths to help you compress your documents.
How to Compress a PDF to a Chosen Size
Go to the ‘Compress PDF’ online tool.
Select your PDF, then drag and drop it into the tool.
Choose either ‘Basic compression’ or ‘Strong compression’. We’ll also show an estimation of the compression rates here.
Click ‘Choose option’ to compress your document.
Download your PDF.
So, it’s worthwhile pointing out that the rates given here are estimates but they are still very strong. A lot of times, the contents of your original document can affect the compression rate. So, if it’s entirely text then it will compress at a different rate than a PDF with lots of images in it.
When you use our basic compression, the file size will go down around 40%, but the image quality and the stored data in the file won’t be affected much, if at all. On the other hand, if you use strong compression, some things will be slightly different. You may lose some image quality, for example, or the quality of the data may suffer a little. What do I mean by this? Basically, if you have images in the file and use strong compression, your images could seem blurry afterwards. This is all to say, don’t use the strong compression unless you really need to. For example, you should use strong compression if you need to get the file size below a certain limit for online submission but not if you are just trying to make the file a little smaller. Just click at sodapdf.com/compress-pdf/ and make your pdf smaller.
Is This Online PDF Compression Tool Free?
The standard mode of compression is accessible to everyone, for free, at zero cost. Once the file is uploaded, you have 19 other tools on our website you can use to further edit your PDF. The strong compression mode, however, does require a Pro subscription to use.
You can check out the cost and benefits of having an account via the sign-up page on our site. Smallpdf also offers a one-week free trial for people who would like to test the tools out before purchasing. As you test out our product, it’s important to review the output file and see which rate of compression best suits your needs.
Secure Online PDF Processing
Smallpdf is the most popular online tool for making PDFs smaller. We feature an easy drag-and-drop UI, quick processing, and SSL encryption for file processing to keep your files safe. So, you can come to our site whenever you need to reduce PDFs of any file size.
How To Compress Files Other Than PDF
Other than the PDF compressor, you can also compress other types of files, like JPGs, PPT or Word. The way to do this is pretty straightforward, but it means you can compress virtually everything with our PDF compressor. Select files in different formats and then select a converter via our homepage (which is available on any web browser), e.g., Word to PDF. To reduce the size of other file types, convert the file first to PDF format, click ‘Compress PDF’ on the result page, and then save the file back to its original format. Voila!
These tools are all available for you to use for free and without installing any software or apps, or the need to even enter an email address. Once you compress a large PDF file to your chosen size, you can freely share, email, or even export it to Google Drive or Dropbox. Smaller files are convenient for local storage too.
The Smallpdf team is hard at work to bring even more compression rates to you, i.e. light compression for those who don’t need a significant reduction in their file size. If you have any suggestions, feel free to pop us an email via our support page.
