How to Compress a PDF to 1MB or Less

Man typing at desk in modern office.

Sometimes a PDF file is larger than you anticipated and takes up more room than you first thought. If you’re trying to email a PDF file, or have limited space on your hard drive, managing your megabytes can be essential. With Adobe’s tools, you can reduce file sizes, which could potentially compress a PDF to 100KB.

Learn how to compress PDFs so you can share multiple files without fear of hitting the attachment limit.

What You’ll Learn.

How to Compress a PDF to 1MB or less.

Aside from being a nice round number, 1MB is a familiar limit for many sites that allow you to upload files. If you’re attaching PDF files to an email, the smaller the file, the quicker it can be uploaded and then downloaded once it arrives. Likewise, the number of attachments you can add to an email increase when your files are smaller.

Compress PDF Files to Less Than 1MB Online.

Compressing PDF files has never been easier with Adobe’s online Compress PDF tool. Start by launching the tool and you should see a prompt asking you to select a file.

  1. From here, you can either select a file from your computer using the button or by dragging your chosen PDF file from a folder to the open webpage.
  2. Once you upload your PDF file, you should see your compression options. Choose the size you want and select Compress. Generally speaking, the smaller the compression, the lower the quality.

Compress PDF options on Adobe Acrobat website.

Loading screen that appears after choosing to compress PDF.

  1. Once your PDF has finished compressing, you’ll receive a preview of your compressed file, along with the option to download it.

The original size of your file will determine how close you get to 1MB. But compressing your PDF will go a long way to helping to fix it.

Sample PDF after compression.

Compress PDF Files to Less Than 1MB Offline.

With Adobe Acrobat Pro, it’s easy to compress PDF files even when you’re offline. Follow these simple steps to reduce the size of your PDF files.

  1. Open your chosen file in Adobe Acrobat Pro
  2. In the top bar, click on File > Reduce File Size
  3. Choose your file location and the name of your file
  4. Hit the Save button and wait for Adobe to compress your file.

How to Reduce PDF Size to 300KB Without Losing Quality.

If you want to compress PDF files to 300KB or 200KB, it may be difficult or even impossible if your file size is initially too big. Compressing files can only reduce them so much. And it doesn’t guarantee that files will be below a certain size.

When you compress PDF files to 300KB, the process is the same as other file sizes. And with Adobe Acrobat Pro, there’s more than one way to do it.

Another effective way of compressing a PDF file is to visit the tools section in Adobe Acrobat online.

Search bar in the tools section of Adobe Acrobat online.

From here, scroll until you find Compress PDF:

Compress PDF option on Adobe Acrobat.

Follow the steps after pressing ‘Open’ to reduce your file size.

Compress PDF to 200KB.

Compressing a PDF file to 200KB could be harder than compressing it to 1MB. The smaller you want to make a file, the tougher it can be to reach your target size. However, with Adobe Acrobat’s Optimize PDF tool, you can make additional changes to help your chances of reducing the size of your PDF file to 200KB.

To use Adobe’s, Optimise PDF function, start by opening Adobe Acrobat Pro and head to tools.

Click on the tool called Optimize PDF, then add your chosen PDF. To begin to reduce PDF size to 200KB, start by browsing the panels of the PDF optimizer.

Screenshot of PDF Advanced Optimisation option on the Adobe Acrobat Reader Tools menu.

Here, you can find several options that allow you to reduce file sizes and potentially compress your PDF to 200KB.

For example, the Down sample in the Images panel lowers the resolution of images. The Transparency panel flattens transparency and reduces file sizes. Discard Objects, Discard User Data and Clean Up all allow you to remove superfluous data attached to the PDF.

If you use all these tools together, you may find it becomes possible to compress a PDF to 100KB.

FAQs

How do I convert a JPG to a PDF smaller than 300KB?
First, you’ll need to convert your JPG to a PDF. You can do this by uploading your JPG to Adobe’s JPG to PDF converter. Once your new file is ready, you could compress your PDF to less than 300KB using Adobe’s online Compress PDF tool.
Do PDF files compress well?
PDF files are well known for their ability to be compressed. Currently, there are two forms of file compression, lossless and lossy, and PDF supports both. If you want to compress your PDF to 1MB for free, you can use Adobe’s online tool for compressing PDFs.
What if my compressed file is still too big?
If your file is still too big, you may be able to compress the already compressed file to bring the size down. Adobe Acrobat Pro also allows you to make changes to the PDF via the PDF optimizer function. From there, you can remove unnecessary elements and data.

How to sign a PDF document on a computer.

How to write on a PDF.

How to save one page of a PDF.