How much can compress shrink a PDF?

Image-heavy and scanned PDFs commonly drop 50–80% at DPI 110 and JPEG quality 70 with no obvious loss for screen viewing. Vector-text PDFs shrink less because the source was already compact.

Does compress lose text quality?

Yes — folio re-renders every page as a JPEG, so selectable text becomes raster pixels. For text-only PDFs that need to stay copy-able, a desktop tool that uses object-stream compression preserves more.

Will compress unlock my PDF?

No — password-protected PDFs are not supported in this version. Unlock the file with a desktop tool first, then drop the unlocked copy into the compressor.

Is this PDF toolkit free?

Yes. folio is free to use, no account is required, and there are no paid plans.

Are my PDFs uploaded to a server?

No. folio runs entirely in your browser. Your PDFs are never uploaded, never seen by our infrastructure, and never stored anywhere outside your device. When you close the tab, every file is gone.

Which operations are supported?

Merge PDFs, split a PDF into ranges, compress a PDF, convert PDF pages to JPG or PNG, build a PDF from images, rotate all or selected pages, add a watermark, and extract plain text. All of this happens in your browser.

Is there a file size limit?

Yes. Each file may be up to 100 MB. Browser memory is the real ceiling — very large scanned PDFs may struggle on lower-end devices.

Can I work with multiple PDFs at once?

Yes. Merge and Images→PDF accept up to 20 files in a single batch. Split, Compress, Rotate, Watermark and Extract Text take one PDF at a time.

Will my converted images / PDFs lose quality?

Compress and PDF→JPG/PNG re-render pages at the DPI/quality you pick, so there is a small generational loss like any image re-encode. Merge, Split, Rotate, Watermark and Extract Text do not re-render — they only edit the existing PDF objects, so quality is preserved.

Can folio open password-protected PDFs?

Not yet. If your PDF requires a password to open, please unlock it first in a dedicated app. We deliberately skip password handling to keep folio fully client-side and free of legal grey areas.

Not in this version. Extract Text only works for PDFs that already have selectable text. Scanned image-only PDFs need OCR, which is a separate, much heavier project we may add later.

Why does the first PDF→Image take a moment?

When you first use an operation that renders PDF pages (PDF→JPG, PDF→PNG, or split previews), folio downloads the rendering engine (~1 MB). After that it stays cached and subsequent operations start immediately.

Are ads required to use the tool?

No. Ads are isolated from the converter. The tool works completely even if ads fail to load or are blocked.

PDF → Smaller PDF

Compress a PDF

Big PDFs slow down email and uploads. Drop yours below and lower the DPI or JPEG quality. folio rasterises each page and re-embeds it in a leaner document — entirely in your browser.

Drop your PDF here

Tune the DPI and JPEG quality, then compress

Choose PDF

PDF

Upload a file to start.

One PDF up to 100 MB. Lower DPI = smaller file.

Every operation runs entirely in your browser. Your files never leave your device.

About Compress PDF

How does folio compress PDFs?

folio renders each page to a canvas at the DPI you choose, encodes it as a JPEG at your chosen quality, and stitches the result into a new PDF at the original page dimensions. This works best for scanned documents and image-heavy PDFs.

What about crisp vector text?

Rasterising trades sharpness for size. If your PDF is mostly text in vector form (typeset reports, exported slide decks), expect some softening when you compress aggressively. Try DPI 150 and quality 80 first — usually invisible at screen sizes, still a meaningful shrink.

Will the page count or dimensions change?

No. folio preserves the page count and the original page size in points. Only the visual content is rasterised. Selectable text becomes part of the page image and is no longer copy-able after compression.

About this operation

PDF → PDF

What it does

folio compresses by rasterising: every page is rendered to a canvas at the DPI you pick, encoded as a JPEG at the quality you pick, and stitched back into a new PDF at the original page dimensions. This works best for scans and image-heavy documents. For vector-text-heavy PDFs (typeset reports, exported slide decks) expect some softening at aggressive settings — a desktop tool that uses object-stream compression would preserve sharper text.

When to use it

Shrink scanned invoices and statements before emailing
Slim down image-heavy presentation exports
Get a PDF under an upload size limit
Make a brochure web-friendly

Limitations — what it doesn't do

Cannot unlock password-protected PDFs
Re-renders to images — selectable text becomes raster, no longer copy-able
Vector text and crisp line art soften at low DPI / quality
Page count and page dimensions are preserved; structure is not optimised

Every tool runs entirely in your browser.

Frequently asked questions

Your PDFs never leave your device

folio is a static page. Every operation runs inside your browser via pdf-lib (edit) and pdfjs (render). There is no server-side processing, no upload, no temporary file, no cache. When you close this tab, every file is gone.

No account required.
No server processing. Your PDFs stay on your device.
No caching, no Service Worker, no IndexedDB persistence.
pdfjs-dist (lazy-loaded for rendering) is fetched from your own origin; nothing else is sent.