Make your PDF small enough to send

Often yes, but it depends on the content. Pick the Low preset (lowest DPI and JPEG quality) for the smallest result, and check the before/after size shown in the result panel. Scanned or image-heavy PDFs compress dramatically and usually drop under 100-200KB; text-heavy or multi-page PDFs may not, because each page is rendered to an image. There is no fixed byte-target slider, so reduce the page count or split the PDF first if you need to hit a strict government upload limit.

Start compressing and see the result before signing up. Create a free account to download the standard watermark-free PDF; Premium adds 50 MB uploads and batch work, while Pro raises uploads to 120 MB. Your PDF is uploaded over HTTPS and automatically deleted after its temporary retention period.

Drop a PDF, pick a compression level (Screen / E-book / Printer / Prepress — Printer is recommended) and click Compress PDF. Images inside the PDF are downsampled and re-encoded at the chosen profile, then assembled into a new smaller PDF. Most PDFs shrink 50-90% with no visible quality loss at the Printer preset.

Screen (72 DPI) is best for very large image-PDFs where size matters more than fine detail. E-book (150 DPI) suits text-heavy reports for screen reading. Printer (300 DPI) is the sweet spot for most workflows — print-friendly and email-friendly. Prepress (300 DPI, lighter compression) keeps high-resolution photography intact at the cost of file size.

At High and Best presets text remains crisp and easily readable. Low and Medium are designed for documents that are mostly images — text-heavy pages compressed at Low may show some softening but stay legible. If text quality is paramount, choose the Best preset or skip compression for that file.

It usually isn't — compression here works by rasterising each page to JPEG, which means text becomes a picture of text. If you need both small size and selectable text, run a smaller, OCR-aware compression in a desktop tool, or skip this step entirely and compress only the images inside the PDF.

Highly variable: image-heavy PDFs (scanned documents, magazines, brochures) often shrink 80-95% at the High preset. Text-only PDFs may not shrink at all (or may grow slightly) because the source already used efficient text encoding. The before/after size comparison in the result panel tells you exactly.

Your PDF is uploaded over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, compressed on our secure server, and automatically deleted afterward — we never store, share, or sell it. If your policy requires a file that never leaves your device, use a desktop PDF tool locally instead.

Not in a single batch from this screen — currently one PDF at a time so you can verify quality per file. For bulk compression, run each through the tool one after another; settings are remembered between runs.

Yes — compression and preview are free, and a free account unlocks the standard watermark-free download. Premium remains available for larger files, batch work and higher capabilities.

Drop your PDF onto the page, choose one of the four compression levels, then click Compress PDF. The result panel previews the saving before signup. Create a free account to download the standard watermark-free file; there is nothing to install.

This tool shrinks a PDF by tidying its internal structure, so PDFs whose bulk is large embedded photos see only a modest reduction. The fix is to compress the images first: run them through our Compress Image tool, then rebuild or re-export the PDF so the lighter pictures go in from the start.

These are the industry-standard print compression profiles: Screen downsamples images to 72 DPI for the smallest possible file (good for on-screen viewing only), E-book steps up to 150 DPI, Printer (the recommended default) keeps 300 DPI for documents you'll still print, and Prepress also runs at 300 DPI with lighter compression for near-original image fidelity.

No. The tool always runs a structural cleanup pass alongside the image re-encoding, compares both results, and returns whichever is smaller — it never hands you back a file larger than your original, even if the source PDF was already lightly compressed.

For emailing a scanned document, use Screen or E-book — 72-150 DPI is plenty for the recipient to read on-screen and keeps the attachment small enough for most inbox size limits. For a file heading to a print shop or press, use Printer or Prepress so photos and fine text stay sharp at real-world print resolution.

Your PDF is uploaded to our servers, where each page is re-rendered and re-encoded at your chosen preset (Screen, E-book, Printer or Prepress) before the smaller file is sent back to you — compression does not happen locally in your browser. The uploaded original and the processed file are both auto-deleted from the server after processing, so nothing is retained beyond what's needed to produce your download.

Yes — Pixoate supports batch and bulk processing. Switch to Batch mode, add up to 60 PDFs on Premium or 200 on Pro, set your options once, and every PDF is processed with the same settings before you download a single ZIP. Bulk processing is a Premium feature; the output uses the same quality and settings as single mode.

Yes — with bulk processing you configure the settings a single time and they apply to every item in the batch — up to 60 PDFs on Premium or 200 on Pro. There is no need to repeat the setup per item, and Temporary uploaded and generated files are processed securely and deleted automatically.