Upload a PDF to reduce its file size by cleaning up metadata and optimizing its internal structure.
Client-side compression is limited compared to server-based tools — it optimizes document structure and strips unnecessary metadata, but doesn't re-encode embedded images. For PDFs with large embedded photos, savings may be modest.
PDF file size can balloon for a number of reasons — high-resolution embedded images, redundant internal objects left over from repeated editing, or verbose metadata and formatting information that accumulates as a document passes through multiple tools. A smaller file is easier to email (many providers cap attachment size), faster to upload to a portal, and quicker for a recipient to open.
This tool applies the compression techniques that are genuinely achievable entirely within a browser: it strips non-essential metadata (title, author, subject, and producer information that often serves no purpose once a document is finalized) and re-saves the PDF using an optimized internal object structure that reduces redundancy in how the document is stored internally. This is meaningfully different from the deeper compression that dedicated server-based tools can perform, which typically involves re-encoding embedded images at a lower resolution or quality — a process that requires more processing power than is practical to run entirely client-side in a browser for large files.
Because of that distinction, this tool works best on PDFs that are large primarily due to structural bloat or accumulated metadata — documents that have been edited and re-saved many times, or exported from certain software that embeds excessive formatting information — rather than PDFs that are large purely because of high-resolution photographs. For documents dominated by large embedded images, expect a modest reduction rather than a dramatic one, and the before/after file size comparison shown after compression gives you an honest, immediate sense of how much was actually saved for your specific file.