How to shrink a PDF so it fits an email attachment

Why PDFs get large

A PDF that is mostly text is tiny. The size comes from embedded images: phone-camera scans, screenshots, and high-resolution photos placed on the page. Each one can be several megabytes on its own.

Compressing a PDF re-encodes those images at a sensible screen resolution and quality. Selectable text, links and form fields are untouched.

Compress it in your browser

Use the Compress PDF tool. Nothing is uploaded — the file is rebuilt on your device.

1. 1Open Compress PDF and drop your file in.
2. 2Pick a strength. "Balanced" is enough for most email attachments.
3. 3Download the result and check the new size.
4. 4Still too big? Run it again at a stronger setting, or split it.

If compression is not enough

A 300-page scanned binder may still be over the limit after compression. In that case, split it into parts and send them separately, or extract only the pages the recipient actually needs.

• •Split PDF — one file per page, delivered as a ZIP.
• •Extract PDF Pages — keep only a chosen range.