Make a PDF smaller for email or upload
Choose a PDF, select a compression level and compare the original and output sizes before downloading. The tool is designed for scanned documents and image-heavy PDFs, where reducing image resolution and JPEG quality can make the largest difference.
Balanced, strong and smallest-file modes
- Balanced keeps more page detail and applies moderate compression.
- Strong is a practical middle ground for email and web sharing.
- Smallest file uses the lowest resolution and image quality available in this tool. Fine text and graphics may look softer.
No browser tool can promise one universal minimum size. The result depends on the original document, page dimensions, images and existing compression. If the new file is larger, FigureOwl tells you to keep the original.
How this PDF compressor works
Each page is rendered as a JPEG image at the selected quality, then placed into a new PDF with the original page dimensions. This often reduces scans, photographs and presentation exports. A text-only PDF that is already efficiently compressed may not become smaller.
Know what the compressed copy changes
Rasterizing pages preserves their visible appearance but removes selectable text, links, forms, comments, layers and accessibility structure. Existing digital signatures will not remain valid. This tool does not perform OCR. Keep the original document and inspect the downloaded copy before relying on it.
Private browser-local compression
The selected PDF is processed in memory by your browser and is not uploaded to FigureOwl. Files can be up to 100 MB and 60 pages. Large pages may require substantial device memory; split a long document and compress the sections if needed.