Home
Tools
Documents
Search
  • Pricing
  1. Home
  2. Compress PDF
  3. How To Compress PDF
  4. Compress PDF to a Chosen Size Online
Compress PDF to Chosen Size Blog Banner

Compress PDF to a Chosen Size Online

by Hung Nguyen

You can also read this article in German, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Italian and Portuguese.

Reduce your PDF file to your desired size using Smallpdf’s online compression tool.

Smallpdf is the most popular online PDF compression tool. Due to high demand, we now offer two compression options: basic and strong, for a size reduction of up to 99%.

How to Compress a PDF to a Chosen Size

  1. Go to the "Compress PDF" online tool.

  2. Drag and drop your PDF into the tool.

  3. Choose either “Basic compression” or “Strong compression.”

  4. Click “Compress,” and you’re done.

  5. Download your PDF.

2023-03-14 - Compress PDF to a Chosen Size Online

Compress your PDF in a few clicks, to any size you like

When selecting a compression option, you’ll see compression rate estimates to help you decide. The contents of your original document can frequently influence the compression rate. So, a PDF consisting mainly of text will compress at a different rate than a PDF with many images.

When using basic compression, the file will reduce by around 40%, but the image quality and the stored data in the file won’t be affected much, if at all. However, some things may be slightly different if you use strong compression. You may lose some image quality, or data quality may suffer slightly. What do I mean by this? Basically, if you have images in the file and use strong compression, your images could seem blurry afterward. It’s recommended not to use strong compression unless you really need to in order to prevent this issue. For example, you can use strong compression to get the file size below a certain limit for online submission, but not if you are just trying to make the file a little smaller.

Compression options of Smallpdf

The two available compression options of Smallpdf.

Is This Online PDF Compression Tool Free?

 

Basic compression is accessible by everyone, free of charge. Strong compression mode, however, does require a Pro subscription to use—you can try it out by signing up for a 7-day free trial. Once the file is uploaded, you’ll also have access to more than 20 other tools on our website to further edit your PDF. You’ll find all our tools listed on our homepage.

Secure Online PDF Processing

 

Smallpdf is the most popular online tool for shrinking PDFs due to its ease of use, fast results, and TLS encryption for secure processing to keep your files and data safe. You can reduce the size of your files, knowing you’re in safe hands.

How To Compress Files Other Than PDF

 

You can also compress other types of files like JPG, PPT, or Word documents—just drop them into the tool, and you’re good to go. We’ll automatically convert the document to PDF for you and then compress it. The process is very straightforward and means you can compress virtually everything with our PDF compressor. You can then download the file in various formats, including Word, PPT, Excel, and JPG, through the “Export As” menu.

These tools are all free to use and don’t require installing any software or apps or entering an email address. After compressing a large PDF file to the size you want, you can share, email, or export it to Google Drive or Dropbox. Smaller files are also easier to store on your computer.

The Smallpdf team is hard at work to bring even more options and features to you. If you have any suggestions, feel free to pop us an email via our support page.

Hung Nguyen
Hung Nguyen
Senior Growth Marketing Manager @Smallpdf