Shrink a scanned PDF

Three steps, all in your browser: split the PDF into page images, compress them, rebuild the PDF. Works best on scans. Nothing is uploaded.

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Open the PDF tools →

PDF to image, then image to PDF. There is no one-click PDF compressor.

Compress PDF — Free, Fast & Private

Be clear about what this page is. MiniPx does not have a one-click PDF compressor, and saying otherwise would waste your time. What it has is a two-part PDF tool that gets you to the same place for the documents people actually need to shrink: scans.

The route is: open the PDF tool, use PDF to image to render every page to JPG or PNG, run those pages through the image compressor, then use image to PDF to bind them back into one document. A 10 MB scan of a certificate set typically comes back at 1-3 MB.

The trade-off is real and worth stating before you start. Rebuilding this way rasterises the whole document, so any selectable text becomes part of the page image. Text stops being searchable and copyable, and the file will not pass a portal that requires machine-readable text. For a scanned document that was already an image, you lose nothing. For an exported report or a contract with live text, do not use this route — export it again at a lower image quality from whatever produced it.

Everything runs in your browser using PDF.js to render and jsPDF to rebuild. Your documents never leave your device, which is the point for legal contracts, financial statements, medical records, and ID paperwork.

Most email services cap attachments at 25 MB, and many form portals want PDFs under 5 MB or 2 MB. Compressing the page images at the middle step is the lever that gets you there.

How it works

  1. Open the PDF tools: Click the PDF tab at the top of MiniPx. It has two sides: PDF to image, and image to PDF.
  2. Render the PDF to page images: Upload your PDF on the PDF-to-image side. Every page renders to a JPG or PNG. Files up to 200 MB are accepted.
  3. Compress the page images: Run the exported pages through the image compressor. Smart balances quality and size; Tiny goes smaller. Watch the per-file size readout.
  4. Rebuild the PDF: Feed the compressed pages back through image to PDF. The result is one document again — smaller, and rasterised, so its text is no longer selectable.

Frequently asked questions

Does MiniPx have a one-click PDF compressor?
No. It has PDF to image and image to PDF. Chaining them through the image compressor shrinks a PDF, and for scanned documents the result is the same thing a PDF compressor would give you. We would rather say this than sell you a button that does not exist.
Will my text stay selectable?
No. Rebuilding from page images rasterises the document, so text becomes part of the image. If you need searchable or copyable text, or a portal demands machine-readable text, re-export from the original source instead.
What is this actually good for?
Scanned documents. A scan is already a full-page image, so rasterising costs you nothing and the size drop is large — 50-70% is typical. Certificates, mark sheets, signed forms, and photographed paperwork are the sweet spot.
Is it safe for legal and financial documents?
Yes. Every step runs in your browser through PDF.js and jsPDF. Your documents are never uploaded to any server, so there is nothing on our side to leak or subpoena.
What is the maximum PDF file size?
The tool accepts PDFs up to 200 MB. Beyond that your browser, not our server, is the limit. Large files take longer because every page is rendered locally.
Can I compress multiple PDFs at once?
One PDF at a time on the PDF-to-image side. The middle step, compressing the page images, is a normal batch — the free tier processes five images at a time and Pro removes that cap.

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