This page starts on our Light level, which is lossless: it rebuilds the PDF without unused data and stores it more efficiently, but never touches your text, fonts or images. Your document looks identical and text stays selectable. If the file is still too big, the Recommended level re-saves pages as optimised images — great for scans and photos, where the difference is hard to see on screen.
Tips for the best result
- Text documents from Word or Google Docs are often already small — lossless gives modest savings.
- Photo-heavy and scanned PDFs shrink the most with Recommended; zoom in on the result before sending.
- Need it under an exact limit? Choose Exact size and type it — we keep the highest quality that fits.
How to compress PDF without losing quality
- Select or drop your PDF (you can add several).
- Pick a compression level — or choose Exact size and type the limit, e.g. 200 KB.
- Click Compress PDF.
- Download the smaller PDF. We show you exactly how much space you saved.
Want more options? The full Compress PDF tool has every setting.
Frequently asked questions
Can you really compress a PDF without losing quality?
Yes, with lossless compression: removing unused objects and storing data more efficiently doesn't change what you see. The trade-off is that savings are usually smaller — often 5–30% — than with image compression.
Which level keeps the best quality?
Light. It keeps every page exactly as it was, including selectable text. Recommended gives much smaller files but turns pages into images.
Why did my PDF barely get smaller?
It was probably already well optimised. Most of a PDF's size usually comes from images; if there are few images, there's little to remove without lowering quality.
How do I reduce a PDF to 200 KB (or 100 KB)?
Add your PDF, choose "Exact size (KB / MB)", type 200 (or 100) and click Compress PDF. The tool tries different quality settings and gives you the best-looking version that fits under your limit.
Step-by-step guide: How to reduce PDF size for online forms (100 KB, 200 KB and more)
Read the guide