Compress PDF
Reduce file size while optimizing for maximal quality. Make your PDFs smaller and easier to share.
Select PDF file
or drop PDF here
How does PDF compression work?
PDF compression reduces file size by recompressing embedded images, removing duplicate data objects, and stripping unnecessary metadata. PDFLE offers three compression levels: High Compression targets maximum size reduction at the cost of some image quality; Recommended (Balanced) achieves 40–60% size reduction while maintaining acceptable visual quality; Low Compression preserves near-original quality with 10–30% size reduction.
How to compress a PDF online — step by step
- Upload your PDF — click "Select PDF file" or drag your PDF into the drop zone.
- Choose a compression level — select "Recommended (Balanced)" for most use cases, or "High Compression" when file size is the priority.
- Click "Compress PDF" — PDFLE processes and optimizes the file.
- Download the compressed file — the result section shows the original vs. new file size so you can confirm the reduction before saving.
When should you compress a PDF?
- Before emailing — most email servers reject attachments over 25 MB
- Before uploading to a web portal with file size restrictions
- Before sharing via messaging apps that limit file sizes
- When archiving large PDF collections to reduce storage costs
- To improve PDF loading speed on websites
Avoid compressing an already-compressed PDF repeatedly — each additional compression pass degrades image quality without proportionally reducing file size.
Related tools: merge PDFs before compressing a combined document, convert the PDF to Word for editing, or view the compressed result in the PDF viewer.