Significantly reduce PDF file size while preserving high visual quality.
Compressing a PDF reduces its file size, making it easier to email, upload to portals, or store on limited disk space. A 25 MB scanned report can become a 4 MB file without losing readability. PDFly offers three compression levels: Extreme (maximum reduction), Recommended (balanced), and Light (minimal changes). All compression happens in your browser — your file never leaves your device and no data is sent to any server.
Compression works by re-encoding images at lower resolution, removing unused objects, cleaning metadata, and optimizing the PDF's internal structure. Text-heavy documents compress very well with almost no visible quality loss because text data is already lightweight. Image-heavy PDFs like scanned documents or photo portfolios see the biggest size reductions, though very aggressive compression may slightly reduce image sharpness on close inspection.
The Recommended preset works well for most use cases — it balances file size with visual quality for everyday sharing. Choose Extreme when you need to meet strict upload size limits like government portals, job application systems, or email attachment caps (typically 10–25 MB). Choose Light when quality matters more than size, such as for print-ready documents or portfolios. After compressing, compare the original and compressed files side by side to confirm the quality meets your needs. For documents you'll print, test a sample page first to ensure images look acceptable on paper.
