Reduce PDF file size on a Mac or Windows PC without installing anything. Compare macOS Preview's built-in filter against an online compressor with two levels.
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Mac and Windows users often struggle with large PDF exports from Pages, Keynote, or Word. Our browser-based tool shrinks the file without installing any software, and shows you the resulting size before you download it.
Preview has a "Reduce File Size" Quartz filter under File > Export, and it runs entirely on your Mac — a real advantage if the document must not leave your machine. Its drawback is that it is a single fixed profile: on some files it over-compresses photos into visibly soft images, and on text-only files it barely helps at all. Our compressor offers two levels instead of one, so you can pick how far to go, but it works by sending your file over an encrypted connection to a compression service rather than processing it on your computer.
Both routes work the same way underneath: they re-encode the images inside the PDF at lower quality, and at more aggressive settings a lower resolution. That is lossy. Text and vector graphics are untouched and stay crisp, which is why a bloated report can shrink dramatically while an already-optimised photo deck barely moves. Our Recommended level applies moderate compression; Extreme downsamples images to 72 DPI for the smallest file.