How to Compress a PDF to a Target Size (Email/Upload Limits)

Quick answer: pick a compression level, run it once, note the size — not there yet? step the level up. Gains depend on content: image-heavy PDFs shrink a lot, text-only PDFs are already small.

Iterative compression

1. Run Compress PDF at a medium level, note the result
2. Not there? Step the level up and retry
3. Done → download

What determines the gain

• Scans/image PDFs: biggest gains (image downsampling)
• Text-only PDFs: usually already tiny (tens of KB)
• Previously compressed files: diminishing returns

When the target is still out of reach

• Split: Split PDF into smaller files and send separately
• Extract key pages: Extract Pages
• Fix at the source: lower image resolution before exporting from Word/PPT

FAQ

Will text get blurry? No — text is vector content; only images resample. Choose a lower level to keep images sharp. Is lossless compression possible? Yes — levels include lossless; gains on image-heavy files are smaller.