How to Compress a PDF for Email
Email services limit attachment size. Here is how to shrink a PDF, what to expect, and when compression will not help.
Many email services limit attachments to roughly 20 to 25 MB, and many online forms accept even less. If your PDF is too big, compression can bring it down to a size that can be sent.
How this tool works
The Compress PDF tool re-draws each page as an image and saves the pages into a new PDF. You can choose how strong the compression is. This is very effective for scanned documents and PDFs full of photographs.
Because pages become images, text in the compressed file can no longer be selected or searched. Keep your original file if you need that.
Steps
- Open Compress PDF and select your file.
- Choose a level: Extreme for the smallest file, Recommended for a good balance, or Less for the best quality.
- Click Compress PDF and compare the new size with the old one.
- Open the result and check that the text is still easy to read at the zoom level you normally use.
When compression does not help
A PDF that is mostly text is already small. Re-drawing its pages as images can even make it larger. In that case, other options work better: remove pages you do not need with the Split PDF tool, or send the file through a link instead of as an attachment.
Tips
- Start with Recommended. Only use Extreme if the file is still too large.
- Scans made at very high resolution shrink the most.
- Always keep the original. Compression cannot be reversed.