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Choose the fidelity target for the production estimate and handoff guidance.
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OCR PDF Tool Extract text from native or scanned PDFs in your browser, with per-page OCR fallback, confidence clues, range guards, and local file handling.
File to PDF Converter Turn images and text sources into local PDF output while preflighting Office files for renderer needs, layout risks and fidelity limits.
PDF Page Extractor Extract selected PDF pages in your browser, keep a custom order or remove repeats, and verify every output page against its source.
PDF Merger Merge PDF files locally in your browser, arrange their page order, enforce file and size guards, and download one combined document.

A PDF that is too large for an email, portal, or archive may be carrying very different kinds of data. A scanned contract can be dominated by page images, while a report exported from an office application may contain compact text plus fonts, metadata, annotations, forms, and structural records. Those differences decide which kind of compression can help.

Structural rewriting and image recompression solve separate problems. Rewriting can reorganize PDF objects and remove selected document-information fields without deliberately lowering image quality. Downsampling or recompressing images can save far more space, but small text, signatures, diagrams, and photographs may lose detail.

Likely source of size Useful response Main caution
Scans and photographs Image downsampling or recompression Fine print and visual evidence can become unreadable.
Older object and cross-reference structure Structural rewrite Savings may be small when streams are already compact.
Document information and XMP metadata Selective metadata cleanup Records may require author, title, provenance, or signature data.
Encryption or damaged structure Password-aware repair or an approved production workflow Bypassing protection is not a compression step.

File size alone cannot prove that a compressed document is usable. The output must still open, every page must render, and forms, links, signatures, fonts, and attachments must behave as expected. A delivery target such as 10 MB is a constraint for planning, not a guarantee that the PDF can reach that size safely.

Compression estimates are most useful for choosing the next workflow. Text-heavy files may benefit from a local rewrite, whereas image-heavy or encrypted PDFs usually need a production optimizer with explicit quality controls. Keep the source until the final PDF has passed both byte-size and visual checks.

How to Use This Tool:

Analyze one PDF first, then decide whether a local structural rewrite or a separate production-compression pass fits the file.

  1. Choose a Source PDF within the Browser work limit. The allowed limit is 10 to 200 MB and starts at 80 MB.
  2. Select a Compression profile for the production estimate. Use Balanced sharing for ordinary distribution, Smallest readable for screen-only delivery, or Print-safe quality when fine image detail matters.
  3. Enter a Target size only when the destination has a real cap. Leave it at 0 when there is no fixed limit.
  4. Choose whether Metadata cleanup may replace common document-information fields. Keep it off when those fields are part of the record.
  5. Run the analysis and check Optimization Checks. Create the local rewrite only when encryption is not blocked, then open the downloaded PDF and inspect every page.

Interpreting Results:

The Local rewrite is an actual file once rewriting succeeds. It reorganizes structure and applies the selected document-information cleanup, but it does not downsample images. The Production estimate is a planning value for a fuller optimization workflow, not a downloadable result.

  • A smaller local rewrite is useful only after its pages, forms, links, fonts, and signatures have been checked.
  • A larger local rewrite should usually be discarded unless metadata cleanup is the main goal.
  • Image compression marked for review means the largest potential savings probably require image processing outside the local rewrite.
  • Target met applies to the production estimate. Verify the bytes of the final production file before sending it.

Technical Details:

PDF compression depends on how much of the source is image data and how much is structural overhead. The analysis looks for page, image-filter, metadata, object-stream, cross-reference-stream, Flate stream, encryption, and JavaScript markers. These markers support a bounded estimate; they do not decode every image or prove that the document is well formed.

Formula Core:

The local estimate applies a structural-savings fraction to the source byte count. The production estimate adds a profile-specific image term and structural allowance, capped at 78% total planned savings.

Blocal = Bsource×(1−slocal) sproduction = min(0.78,slocal+I×p+q) Bproduction = Bsource×(1−sproduction)

Here, I is the estimated image share from 5% to 82%; p is the selected profile's image-savings factor; and q is its structural allowance. The three profiles use p/q pairs of 0.48/0.08, 0.30/0.06, and 0.16/0.04. Estimated byte counts are rounded to whole bytes.

Rule Core:

The structural estimate combines metadata, object-stream, and Flate-stream allowances, then caps their sum at 9%.

Evidence Allowance when present Allowance when absent
Document information or XMP metadata1.2%0.2%
Object or cross-reference streams0.8%4.5%
Flate-compressed streams1.2%0.4%

The image-share heuristic begins at 8%. Image markers add up to 48 percentage points according to their density per page; files above 2.5 MiB per page add 18 points, files above 8 MiB per page add another 12, and JPEG 2000 data or more JPEG markers than pages adds 10. The final share is clamped to 5% through 82%.

A target is marked met when the rounded production estimate is less than or equal to the target bytes. Encryption markers block the local rewrite. The rewrite uses object streams and may clear common document-information fields, but deeper XMP removal and image downsampling are not promised.

Privacy Notes:

The selected PDF is analyzed and rewritten in the browser; no server-side PDF processor is used. The page may load its PDF runtime from a content delivery network, but the file itself is not sent there by the conversion workflow.

Metadata cleanup replaces common document-information fields only. It is not a complete privacy scrub and does not prove that XMP, attachments, annotations, hidden content, scripts, or signatures contain no sensitive information.

Worked Examples:

Image-heavy report with a delivery cap

A 24 MB report must fit a 10 MB portal limit. Analysis finds several image markers and the production estimate falls under 10 MB, while the local rewrite saves little. That result supports a production image-compression pass, followed by a page-by-page check; it does not make the local rewrite the correct final file.

References: