# Make a PDF smaller

Canonical HTML: [https://pdfpix.com/guides/compress/](https://pdfpix.com/guides/compress/)

Eight guides sit under this hub, and they all make PDF smaller. Which one helps depends on why your file is big. Scanned pages, embedded photos and embedded fonts each need a different fix, and the wrong fix wastes an hour. Read the short list below, then pick the guide that matches your file.

## Find the reason the file is big

A PDF is big for one of three reasons. It holds scanned page images, so every page is a photo. It holds photos you placed yourself, at camera resolution nobody needs. Or it holds embedded fonts and never got cleaned up, which is the smallest of the three and rarely the real problem.

Open the file and look at one page. If you can select the text with your cursor, the pages are not images, and the weight is almost certainly in the pictures. If you cannot select anything, the page is a scan, and the scan is the whole file size.

## Pick by the size you need

Some jobs have a hard number attached: an upload form that rejects anything over 2 MB, an email gateway that stops at 25 MB, a government portal that names a limit in KB. If you have a number, use [Compress PDF](https://pdfpix.com/compress-pdf/) and type it in. The tool works toward the number instead of guessing a quality setting.

If you have no number and just want the file lighter, start with the general guide and stop when the file is small enough to send.

The opposite job exists too. A portal that rejects a file for being under a minimum is asking for a bigger file, and [Increase PDF file size](https://pdfpix.com/guides/increase-pdf-file-size/) shows how to reach 100 KB or another floor without padding the document with junk.

## What compression cannot do

Nothing here rewrites the words on the page. Text stays text and stays selectable, which is the rule the whole site is built on. Nothing here turns a document into a picture to hit a number, because that breaks search, copy and paste, and screen readers.

If a file is already small and dense, there may be nothing left to take out. A tool that promises a fixed percentage on every file is guessing.

## Questions and answers

### What is the fastest way to make PDF smaller?

Open Compress PDF, drop the file in, type the size you need, and download the result. It runs in this tab. If you have no target in mind, most files land well below their original size with no setting changed.

### Can I make PDF small enough to email?

Yes. Most mail systems stop somewhere between 10 MB and 25 MB. Type that number as the target and the tool works toward it. A long scan fits too: a black and white scan page comes down to about 29 KB, so a 10 MB cap holds hundreds of pages.

### Does compressing a PDF lose quality?

It can. Photos inside the file get re-encoded, and past a point that shows. Text is never rasterised, so words stay sharp and selectable no matter what the target is.

### Why did my file barely shrink?

Because there was little to remove. A file that is already text with no images has almost no slack in it. The tool still rebuilds it and trims its fonts, and the result shows the exact size it reached.

## Related pages

- [How to reduce PDF file size](https://pdfpix.com/guides/how-to-compress-a-pdf/): Make a PDF smaller and know what got dropped. Free, in your browser, with Compress PDF.
- [Change PDF file size](https://pdfpix.com/guides/change-pdf-file-size/): Hit an exact file size a form demands. Free, in your browser, with Compress PDF.
- [How to compress a PDF without losing quality](https://pdfpix.com/guides/compress-pdf-without-losing-quality/): Cut the file size without wrecking the text or the images. Free, in your browser, with Compress PDF without losing quality.
- [Compress large PDF files](https://pdfpix.com/guides/compress-a-large-pdf/): Deal with a PDF too big for the usual tools. Free, in your browser, with Compress large PDF.
- [Compress a PDF on mobile](https://pdfpix.com/guides/compress-a-pdf-on-your-phone/): Shrink a PDF on a phone without installing anything. Free, in your browser, with Compress PDF.
- [Compress a PDF on a Mac](https://pdfpix.com/guides/compress-a-pdf-on-a-mac/): Make a PDF smaller on a Mac, to the exact size a form asks for. Free, in your browser, with Compress PDF.
- [Compress multiple PDFs into one](https://pdfpix.com/guides/merge-and-compress-pdfs/): Join several PDFs and keep the result under a size limit. Free, in your browser, with Merge PDF.
- [Increase PDF file size to 100 KB or another minimum](https://pdfpix.com/guides/increase-pdf-file-size/): Get a PDF over the minimum size a portal demands, without padding it with junk. Free, in your browser, with PDF to image.
- [Compress PDF](https://pdfpix.com/compress-pdf/): Make a PDF smaller without turning its text into a picture. The file stays in your browser. No upload, no account needed.