PDF tools · strong mode
When the instruction is just "as small as possible": no target, no balancing. This page walks the shrink ladder to its strong end and keeps the smallest file it can honestly reach. For a size you choose instead, the Compress PDF page works to your number.
For a file that must go as small as it honestly can, when there is no target, only a stubborn limit or a slow connection.
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Run the strong compression
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PDF · it stays on this device
Strong
The deep rungs of the same ladder the target page uses: photos rebuilt smaller and softer, step by step, while each step still buys real shrinkage. On the big suites the strong setting is a paid extra; here it is a page.
Before you run it: a scanned page is a picture, so squeezed scans come out softer to read. And a PDF whose pictures are not JPEGs may barely shrink at all. Both are properties of the file, not a fault in the run.
Pick a PDF to begin.
Most of a photo-heavy PDF is the photos inside it. This page reads those photos once, then rebuilds the PDF at deeper and deeper settings (smaller photo dimensions, lower quality) and keeps the smallest result, stopping when a step buys less than one percent more. Text and drawings are never touched; only the photos give.
Strong trades photo quality for bytes, openly. It cannot shrink what is not photos: a text PDF has almost nothing to give, and this page returns it unchanged with the reason, instead of dressing a re-save up as compression. We do not claim the archival-grade results of the big desktop programs; we show the before and after bytes, which is the checkable part.
A password-protected PDF cannot be opened by this tool. Take its password off first with the unlock tool, then bring the file back.
Compress PDF works toward a target you pick and keeps the best quality that fits. This page has no target: it walks to the strong end of the same measured ladder (smaller photo sizes, lower quality) and keeps the smallest result, stopping when a deeper step stops buying real shrinkage.
On a photo-heavy PDF, much smaller than the balanced settings, at a visible cost to the photos. On a text PDF, almost nothing can shrink at any setting: in our tests a plain re-save moved a text PDF from 7,203 bytes to 7,231. The page says so instead of pretending, and returns your original.
They will look softer and smaller, which is the trade this page exists to make. The result line prints the exact photo size and quality used, so the trade is stated, not hidden. If the result is too soft, the target-size page keeps more quality.
Nowhere. It is read into this page and processed in your browser. Watch the network panel while it works if you want to check.