Email attachments, job portals and government forms often reject PDFs over a few megabytes — and scanned documents are usually the culprits. This tool shrinks them by redrawing every page and saving it as a compressed JPG image at a lower resolution.
Because the pages become images, text can no longer be selected or searched, and links, bookmarks and form fields are removed. That makes it a good fit for scans and photo-heavy PDFs, and a poor fit for text documents you still need to edit or search. If the result would not be smaller, you get the original back unchanged.
How to use
- Select or drop one or more PDF files.
- Choose Strong, Balanced or Light compression.
- Press Compress PDF and check the size before → after for each file.
- Download the result (several files come as one ZIP).
Why use Deftivo
Made for scans
Scanned pages are already pictures, so re-saving them at a sensible resolution often cuts the size by more than half.
Honest result
Each file shows its size before and after. If it cannot be made smaller, the original is kept instead of a bigger copy.
No upload
Pages are rendered and compressed in your browser, so the document never leaves your device.
Which level should I pick?
Strong (about 96 dpi) gives the smallest file and is fine for reading on screen. Balanced (about 130 dpi) is a good default. Light (about 170 dpi) keeps small print sharper and is the better choice if the PDF will be printed.
A PDF that is mostly text with no images is usually small already. Turning its pages into images can make it larger, in which case the tool keeps the original.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I select the text after compressing?
Every page is saved as an image to make the file smaller. Text, links, bookmarks and form fields are not kept, so keep your original if you need them.
It says the original was kept — why?
The compressed version was not smaller than your file, which is common for text-only PDFs. You get the original back so nothing gets worse.
Can I compress several PDFs at once?
Yes. Add as many as you like; each file is compressed separately and the results download together as a ZIP.
What about password-protected PDFs?
Remove the password in a PDF reader first. Encrypted PDFs cannot be opened without it.