Compress PDF to 1 MB
Get a PDF under 1 MB (or 2 MB) at the best quality that fits.
Come usare Compress PDF to 1 MB
Drop the PDF that is over the limit. The 1 MB target is preset; switch to 2 MB or type any figure.
Click Compress and let the tool search for the gentlest setting that fits under the limit.
Check the note under the result for the final size and whether the text is intact.
Download and attach or upload it.
Where the 1 MB limit comes from
One megabyte is the limit of choice for job portals, online course submissions, e-government uploads and the attachment rules of some corporate mail gateways; 2 MB is the other common figure, and both are presets here. For a PDF that came from Word or a design tool, 1 MB is usually generous. For a scan, a phone-camera 'PDF' or a brochure with full-page photos, it is tight, because a single photographed A4 page at full resolution is already 2–4 MB.
The good news is that photo weight is exactly what compresses well. Screens show about 100 pixels per inch, and a page in a PDF viewer is rarely more than 1200 pixels tall, so an image stored at 3000 pixels is carrying detail nobody sees. Capping it costs nothing visible and saves most of the file.
How the tool decides how hard to compress
It does not guess. After a lossless rewrite — which alone drops 10–30 % from files saved by office software — it re-encodes the images at a ladder of settings, from mild (JPEG quality 75 %, longest edge 2000 px) down to aggressive (quality 22 %, 600 px), and stops at the first one that brings the file under your figure. A document that only needed the mild step gets only the mild step; you never pay more quality than the limit demands.
Text, vector drawings and fonts are left alone at every rung, so the output opens, selects and searches like the original. Scans without a text layer are the exception: for those the pages are re-rendered as images at decreasing resolution, because there is no text to lose.
- Lossless rewrite: free savings, no quality cost.
- Five image settings, mild to aggressive, first fit wins.
- Text is never rasterized; scans are re-rendered only because they are images already.
- The result note reports the final size and the method used.
Getting from 1 MB to much less — or to an email
If you need 500 KB or 200 KB instead, type it; the same search applies. If the attachment is for email rather than a form, remember that mail encodes attachments at about 1.37 times their size, so a 1 MB PDF costs roughly 1.4 MB of the mailbox limit — set the target a little under the figure the server quotes.
When a document is over the limit because it is long rather than heavy, splitting beats squeezing: two halves at full quality are better than one file at the bottom of the ladder, and most portals accept several attachments.
Why this runs in your browser
Every step runs inside your browser, using the WebAssembly and Canvas APIs your device already ships with. No file is uploaded, no copy is kept, and nothing sits in a queue on a server waiting to be deleted — which is also why the tool keeps working with the network disconnected.
The documents people compress for portals are CVs, contracts, certificates and tax records. Doing the work on your own device means there is no copy on anyone's server to be leaked, sold or 'deleted after one hour', and no upload time either — a 50 MB scan starts compressing the moment you drop it.
Domande frequenti
How much can a PDF be compressed to reach 1 MB?
A photo-heavy or scanned PDF of 5–20 MB routinely gets under 1 MB, because nearly all of its weight is images that can be re-encoded at a lower resolution. A document that is mostly text is already small and usually under 1 MB to begin with.
Does the text stay selectable and searchable?
Yes, whenever the original had a text layer. The tool re-encodes only the images inside the document; it never converts text pages to pictures to reach the target.
Which is better: compress to 1 MB or the normal 'recommended' level?
If you have a limit, use the target. The recommended level applies one fixed setting; the target search tries gentle settings first and only goes harder if it has to, so it often gives better quality than a fixed 'high' setting while guaranteeing the size.
Why is my result larger than 1 MB?
Because the document is mostly text, vector graphics or embedded fonts, which cannot be compressed further without loss. The note explains this. Split the file into parts, or remove pages, and try again.
Is there a file size limit?
None imposed by the tool. Because it runs in your browser, the practical limit is your device's memory; a 100 MB scan works on a normal laptop.
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