# Compress a scanned PDF

> Compress scanned PDFs from phones and office scanners. Shrink 20–50 MB scans to a fraction of the size, with an optional black & white mode. Free, private.

Tool: https://pdfnest.co.in/compress-scanned-pdf

Scanners and phone scanning apps often save every page as a full-resolution colour photo — 2 to 5 MB a page, even for plain text. This page is set up for scans: the Recommended level re-saves each page at a sensible resolution, and Convert to black & white removes colour you don't need, which often halves the size again.

## Tips

- Text scans stay readable down to quite small sizes — try Extreme if Recommended isn't enough.
- Keep colour for photos, stamps and signatures in blue ink.
- Next time, set your scanner to 200–300 DPI and grayscale for documents.

## How to compress scanned PDF

1. Select or drop your PDF (you can add several).
2. Pick a compression level — or choose Exact size and type the limit, e.g. 200 KB.
3. Click Compress PDF.
4. Download the smaller PDF. We show you exactly how much space you saved.

## Features

- **Hit an exact size:** Type 100 KB, 200 KB or 1 MB and we find the best quality that fits.
- **See your savings:** Before and after size is shown, so you know it worked.
- **Black & white option:** Turn colour scans into grayscale for even smaller files.
- **Stays on your device:** Compression runs in your browser — your PDF is never uploaded.

## FAQ

### Why are scanned PDFs so big?

Each page is stored as a photo, often in colour and at a higher resolution than you need for reading or uploading.

### How small can a scanned PDF get?

A typical text page compresses well below 100 KB with black & white turned on. For an exact limit, use Exact size.

### Can I make the scan searchable?

Not here — compression doesn't add text recognition (OCR). The compressed file looks the same as the scan, just smaller.

### 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.