Compress PDF
If a PDF is too big to attach to an email or send through an upload form, this tool can make it smaller. It reduces the photographs and scanned pages inside the file on your own device, while typed text stays crisp.
How to use it
- Select your PDF, or drop it onto the box.
- Choose a compression level. Recommended works well for most files.
- Click Compress PDF, then save the smaller version.
What gets smaller, and by how much
The saving depends entirely on the contents. Scanned documents and PDFs packed with photographs tend to shrink a lot, because their pictures are usually stored in far more detail than any screen or printer needs. A PDF made mostly of typed text is small to begin with and may hardly change. Rather than promise a number, TeddyPDF shows you the size before and after, and if the new copy would not be any smaller, it says so and your original stays as it is.
Only the pictures are reduced. Typed text is left alone, so it stays sharp and you can still search it. Choose Light to keep pictures close to how they were, Recommended for the best trade-off for email and upload forms, or Strong for the smallest possible file, accepting that photographs may look slightly softer.
Private papers stay on your device
The files people most often need to shrink tend to be personal ones, such as bank statements for a mortgage application, payslips, medical letters and signed contracts. TeddyPDF compresses them within your browser, and before your file is opened the page locks itself so that it has no way of sending anything out.
Questions and answers
Does compressing make the words fuzzy?
It does not. Typed text is left exactly as it was. Only the pictures in the file, scanned pages included, are reduced in size.
What if my PDF has a password?
Take the password off first using Remove PDF password, then compress the file. If you still want it locked, add a new password afterwards with Protect PDF.
Why did my file hardly get any smaller?
A PDF that is mostly typed text is already small, so there is little to reduce. If the result would not be smaller at all, the page tells you and you keep your original.
Does TeddyPDF upload my file?
No. Your browser does all the work, on your own device. Before it opens your file, this page shuts off its own ability to send or fetch anything, and your browser holds it to that. Try it: once the page has loaded, turn off your Wi-Fi and the tool still works. How the lock works.