Documents · 2 min read
How to reduce PDF size
PDF files grow quickly because of high-resolution images, embedded fonts and scans. Here are practical ways to reduce the file and an honest look at where quality is lost.
Updated: November 2, 2026
Why PDF files get large
The main reasons are high-resolution images, uncompressed scans, embedded fonts and many pages. Sometimes repeated elements and metadata also add weight.
What really helps
- Compress images before inserting them. Reduce photos to 150–200 DPI for screens and 300 DPI for print.
- Remove unnecessary pages and attachments.
- Rebuild the document. Sometimes it is easier to convert PDF to DOCX, clean up the content and save it as PDF again.
- Use a dedicated PDF compressor. It re-encodes images and fonts but may reduce quality.
- Create a preview. For a website, a JPG or WebP page is often enough instead of the whole PDF.
Our tools
PDF to JPG and PDF to WebP render the first page as an image, which is convenient for previews and listings. PDF to DOCX opens the text for editing. JPG to PDF and PNG to PDF help create a document from an image.
There is no direct PDF compression in the service: use a desktop compressor or rebuild the document to reduce weight.
Limits
The maximum size is 25 MB. Scans without a text layer are not recognised and need OCR. Complex layouts may transfer inaccurately.
Questions and answers
Can I compress a PDF without quality loss?
Fully lossless is rare. Images are usually downsampled or re-encoded, so a small quality loss is possible.
Does converting PDF to JPG help?
JPG reduces size, but you get a page image without selectable text or links. That is not always convenient for documents.
Which is better: PDF to DOCX or PDF to JPG?
DOCX is needed if you plan to edit the text. JPG/PNG suits previews and publishing but loses the text layer.
Do you offer PDF compression?
There is no direct PDF compressor yet. We convert PDF to DOCX, JPG, PNG, WebP and HTML, and create PDFs from images.