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How long does it take to compress a PDF?
Updated July 2026
Most jobs to compress a PDF finish in a few seconds; large or scanned files take a little longer. Compressing a PDF reduces file size — often 50–90% on image-heavy scans — by down-sampling images and stripping redundant data, while keeping text selectable. It runs in your browser session, so there is no upload queue to wait behind.
Answer
Most jobs to compress a PDF finish in a few seconds; large or scanned files take a little longer. Compressing a PDF reduces file size — often 50–90% on image-heavy scans — by down-sampling images and stripping redundant data, while keeping text selectable. It runs in your browser session, so there is no upload queue to wait behind.
More about compress pdf
PDF file size almost always comes from embedded images, not text.
Down-sampling scans to a lower DPI usually gets an image-heavy file under 1MB.
Light compression is visually lossless for most documents.
How to compress a PDF
- 1
Open the compress tool
Sign in and open the Compress tool.
- 2
Add your PDF
Upload the oversized file; it is processed privately.
- 3
Pick a compression level
Higher compression down-samples images more; light compression keeps them crisp.
- 4
Download the smaller file
Most image-heavy PDFs drop well under 1MB with no visible quality loss.
Common questions
- How do I compress a PDF to under 1MB?
- Compressing a PDF reduces file size — often 50–90% on image-heavy scans — by down-sampling images and stripping redundant data, while keeping text selectable. On Arthize it's free with no watermark and processed privately.
- Will compressing a PDF lose quality?
- Compressing a PDF reduces file size — often 50–90% on image-heavy scans — by down-sampling images and stripping redundant data, while keeping text selectable. On Arthize it's free with no watermark and processed privately.
- How do I reduce PDF file size for email?
- Compressing a PDF reduces file size — often 50–90% on image-heavy scans — by down-sampling images and stripping redundant data, while keeping text selectable. On Arthize it's free with no watermark and processed privately.
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