Compress PDF to a Specific Size: Shrink a PDF to under 1 MB, 500 KB or any size limit you need. Input: PDF, image files and values you enter. Output: Results shown on the page and a downloaded file. Privacy: Runs in your browser: inputs and files stay on your device and are not uploaded.
How to compress a PDF to a specific size
- Drop one or more PDFs or photos of documents on the box. Several files are combined into one PDF in the order you add them.
- Choose the size limit you need, or pick Custom size and type it in KB or MB.
- Tick Black and white if colour is not needed. It usually makes scans much smaller.
- Press Compress to target. The tool finds the best quality that fits, then shows the new size and a before and after preview.
- Check the preview, then download the file.
What the tool does
Application forms, job portals and email services often refuse files above a fixed size, and a few phone photos of a document can easily go over it. Instead of asking you to guess a quality setting, this tool works towards the limit you choose.
If your PDF already fits, you get it back unchanged. Next it tries a lossless re-save, which keeps text selectable. Then it shrinks only the photos and scans inside your PDF, trying resolutions and quality levels from best to smallest, and black and white as a last step, while text, fonts and drawings stay exactly as they were. Only if that is still not enough, pages that contain only text and drawings stay as text whenever they leave room for the rest, and pages with scans or photos are turned into JPEG images. It tries resolutions and quality levels from best to smallest and keeps the best one that fits. It will not go below a resolution where normal text stays readable; if the limit is still too small, it says so; for PDFs it gives you the smallest version that keeps your text, so you never get back a file larger than the one you started with.
Limits are measured in decimal units: 1 MB means 1,000,000 bytes and 1 KB means 1,000 bytes. That is slightly smaller than the binary meaning, so the file passes whichever way a website counts.
Everything runs in your browser. Your documents are not uploaded anywhere.
Will the text still be selectable?
Text-only pages are kept as text when the size allows. Scanned or photographed pages become images, so their text is not selectable; run the result through OCR if you need that.
Can I combine several photos into one PDF of a given size?
Yes. Add the photos in the order you want, choose the size and press the button. Each photo becomes one page.
Why can't my file reach the target?
Very small limits leave too few bytes per page for readable text. Try black and white, remove pages you do not need, or split the document into parts.
Why is 1 MB treated as 1,000,000 bytes?
Some sites count 1 MB as 1,000,000 bytes and others as 1,048,576. Aiming for the smaller number means the file is accepted either way.