Compress PDF to 2 MB.
Need a PDF under 2 MB to email or upload? Drop it in and we downsample the images only as far as the target needs, keeping your text as real text. Uploaded privately and deleted after 1 hour. No watermark, no signup.
On-target
Auto-tunes image DPI
Text-safe
Only images shrink
Private
Deleted after 1 hour
How it works
- 01
Add your PDF
Drop in a .pdf, or click to browse. It is uploaded privately over TLS and deleted after 1 hour.
- 02
We find the sharpest images that fit
Ghostscript rewrites the PDF with its images at 220 dpi, then 180, 150 and lower, and keeps the first version at or under 2 MB. Text and vector drawings are not downsampled.
- 03
Download it
Grab the compressed PDF, ready for any form, portal or email with a 2 MB limit.
Other targets: 100 KB · 200 KB · 300 KB · 500 KB · 1 MB · 2 MB · 5 MB · 10 MB · any size · just make it smaller.
What a 2 MB target does to real PDFs
We ran three kinds of PDF through the same engine this page uses, with a 2 MB target.
- A 6 page scan with photo pages at 300 dpi, 3.48 MB: 1,039 KB, with the images at 180 dpi. The 220 dpi version was over 2 MB, so the engine took the next step down.
- A 6 page report with text and photos, 4.12 MB: 360 KB, photos kept at 220 dpi, the highest step, because the target was easy to meet.
- A 20 page vector drawing with no photos, 4.42 MB: 3.56 MB, target missed, because there were no images to shrink.
That is the point of the larger target: the same scan at the 1 MB target drops to 150 dpi. For big scans, 5 MB keeps even more.
What 2 MB holds in a PDF
2 MB is 2,097,152 bytes. Page images are re-encoded from 220 dpi down to 32 dpi until one fits.
| Pages | Per page |
|---|---|
| 1 | 2.00 MB |
| 2 | 1.00 MB |
| 5 | 410 KB |
| 10 | 205 KB |
| 20 | 102 KB |
| 50 | 41.0 KB |
| 100 | 20.5 KB |
| 200 | 10.2 KB |
| 500 | 4.1 KB |
| Scan | 1 page | 10 pages | 50 pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| 220 dpi | 3.59 | 0.36 | 0.072 |
| 150 dpi | 7.71 | 0.77 | 0.15 |
| 100 dpi | 17.35 | 1.74 | 0.35 |
| 64 dpi | 42.40 | 4.24 | 0.85 |
| 32 dpi | 169.28 | 16.93 | 3.39 |
- Still over 2 MB at 32 dpi: you get the smallest version, marked over.
Common questions
Why 2 MB?+
2 MB is a common attachment and upload limit, and it leaves more room than 1 MB, so photos and scans keep more of their detail.
How exact is 2 MB?+
The target is 2,097,152 bytes, which is 2 MB as Windows counts it. Some upload forms count 2 MB as 2,000,000 bytes instead. If a portal still says the file is too big, use the 1 MB target, which leaves room under either count.
Will my text stay readable?+
Yes. Only images are downsampled. In our tests the text stayed real, selectable text with every character intact, and links and bookmarks were kept.
What happens to form fields?+
A filled form field is flattened: its value stays visible on the page as text but can no longer be edited. Compress the PDF before you fill in or sign it.
What if it can't reach 2 MB?+
Then the PDF has little image data to shrink. A 20 page vector drawing of 4.42 MB came down only to 3.56 MB. You get the smallest version we made, never a broken file, and the page tells you the target was missed.
Is my PDF private, and is there a watermark?+
It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, compressed on our server, and both the upload and the result are deleted after 1 hour. No account and no watermark.
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