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How to compress a PDF

Compressing a PDF with RayoPDF takes three steps and a few seconds. No account, no installation, and your file never leaves your device. Try it now or read the full walkthrough below.

Step 1 — Provide your PDF

Drag your file into the compressor box, click the box to open your file picker, or paste it straight from the clipboard with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac). Anything up to 300 MB works — scans, invoices, slide decks, ebooks.

Step 2 — Let it compress

Compression starts by itself the moment the file arrives. Behind the scenes the tool re-encodes oversized images and rebuilds the document's internal structure more efficiently, while leaving text, fonts, page order and orientation untouched.

Want control? Pick a level before dropping the file:

Low — a gentle squeeze that keeps high quality.
Medium — roughly halves most files with a clean look.
High — the default; strong compression for email and sharing.
Maximum — the smallest file, with visible quality trade-offs.

Step 3 — Download the result

The compressed PDF downloads automatically, named after the original — report.pdf becomes report-compressed.pdf — so your source file is never overwritten.

Illustration of the three steps to compress a PDF: provide the file, compress, download — Three steps: provide your PDF, let it compress, download the result.

Keeping quality while shrinking size

Start with Medium when quality matters and step up only if the file is still too big. Photos and scans decide the outcome: a 40-page text document may barely shrink (there is nothing to squeeze), while a 10-page scan will usually shrink a lot. That is normal — it reflects what's inside the file, not a malfunction.

Troubleshooting

“It barely shrank.” Your PDF is likely text-only or already optimized. Try Maximum, or accept that the file is already lean.
“It looks blurry.” You compressed too hard for image-heavy pages. Re-run the original at Low or Medium.
“It won't load.” Password-protected or damaged PDFs may refuse to open. Remove the password in your PDF reader first, then try again.