How to Compress a PDF Online for Free
Portable Document Format or simply PDF has been in the business since the 1990’s and is the most preferred and used file format when it comes to presenting or sharing documents that are generally independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. These documents usually include text formatting and images
The PDF file format has developed rapidly over the last decade and today it may contain a variety of content besides flat text and graphics. These additional contents often include
- Variety of new fonts
- Vector graphics and raster images
- Logical structuring elements like graphs, pie charts, and tables
- Interactive elements such as annotations and form-fields
- Layers
- Rich media content like videos and gifs
- Three-dimensional objects using U3D or PRC
- Encryption and digital signatures
- Various other data formats
The commercial importance of PDF
One of the biggest factors that led to the widespread use and popularity of PDF is the availability of free and countless software and tools used for viewing, editing and compressing PDF files. Many versions of PDF viewers, editors and converters are available from a variety of sources. These tools are generally provided free of charge.
The biggest commercial advantages of any PDF software are the options for creating PDFs and the PDF printing capabilities. Today the most widely used OS platforms like Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android and more support numerous PDF tools like Adobe Acrobat and Google Docs that allow for uploading and saving to PDF. These are the prime factors due to the commercial success and importance of PDF.
Compressing PDF files
As mentioned earlier, there are countless FREE tools and services used for editing and compressing PDF files. Some tools can be downloaded as a software or app, while some are online services. The prime objective of such tools is to reduce the size of your PDF file without affecting the quality of the file, thus keeping your documents printable and zoom-able.
So in this post, I am going to give you a quick rundown of the top 5 software/services to compress PDF files online. The tools mentioned in this list are ABSOLUTELY FREE and do not involve any in-app purchases or subscriptions whatsoever.
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Hipdf (FREE)
Hipdf is a FREE Online PDF Editor, PDF Converter & PDF Compressor. This tool offers a variety of features all clubbed in a clean user-friendly interface. The tool makes even the most complex tasks easy to perform on a PDF file and also ensures that you don’t have to compromise on the quality of the document as it doesn't change the DPI of the file.
Here is a list of PDF conversion and editing tools that Hipdf offers to users.
Conversion tools:
- PDF to Word
- PDF to PPT
- PDF to Excel
- PDF to Images
- PDF to ePub
- Word to PDF
- PPT to PDF
- Excel to PDF
- Image to PDF
- TXT to PDF
Editing tools:
- Merge PDF
- Split PDF
Both the Merge and Split tools help a lot when you want to combine many small files into one PDF or distribute the size of one PDF into numerous smaller files.
- Compress PDF
Hipdf lets you compressed PDFs to a smaller size so that it takes lesser time to upload and download. You can choose the compression level and corresponding quality of the PDF file before compressing the PDF.
- Protect PDF
This tool lets you password protect your PDF files. Which means you can add a password to that must be entered to view its content.
- Unlock PDF
This tool allows users to systematically unlock PDF files that are protected by a password.
Since PDFs are all about creating your documents and then converting them into PDF later, format inter-conversion is the most basic and mandatory feature. Compressed PDFs take lesser time to upload and download, thus saving you a lot of valuable time.
Compressing PDF files by using Hipdf is one of the easiest you will find among other online tools. It offers a variety of conversion options for converting to and from PDF files. Here is a quick guide on how to compress PDF files on Hipdf.
- Visit their website Hipdf
- Click on “Compress PDF” from the various tools provided.
- In the next page, upload your desired PDF file by either clicking on “Choose file” or by drag-dropping your file into their window.
- Once you’ve chosen your file, their server will process and upload the document. This may take a few seconds depending on the size of the document!
- Now once the file has been successfully uploaded, you will be offered to choose from 3 compression qualities; High compression, Good compression, and Less compression.
- Choose your desired compression quality and then hit “Compress”.
- The system will then start processing your request and compress the file for you.
- Once the compression is complete, you can download the file or click on “Start Over” if you are not satisfied with the compression size of your file.
The best thing about Hipdf is that all the tools it offers are ABSOLUTELY FREE and do not require downloading or installing software as they are served from the cloud. Plus, it is mandatory for the users to sign up or log in to use their OCR tool feature which is also FREE.
- PDFCompressor (FREE)
PDFCompresser allows users to compress PDF files online for sending by email, sharing in social networks, publishing on web pages and more. You can upload up to 20 files at a time and compress big PDFs to much smaller sizes without losing the quality. Your documents remain printable and zoomable as this tool doesn't change the DPI of the document.
- DocuPub (FREE)
DocuPub is a popular Online Document Converter that allows anyone to convert and inter-convert among various document formats like Word, Excel, PowerPoint (doc, xls, ppt.), image formats like TIFF, JPG, HEIC and many other to PDF, PDF/A or Image.
The entire tool is served from the cloud and works online. This means that users don’t need to install any software, app or extension on the computer. All you need to do is upload the file and select your delivery method.
- neeviaPDF (FREE)
neeviaPDF is another all-in-one PDF editor and converter that offers compression capabilities to help you reduce the size of your PDF documents while preserving the original quality of the document at the same time. The tool even allows users to remove bookmarks, text annotations, PDF forms, page labels, PDF layers and article threads.
- iLovePdf (FREE)
iLovePDF is a popular online PDF that helps you work with PDF files for free. The tool is easy to use and allows you to compress, merge, and split PDF, along with other conversion options like, Word to PDF, PPT to PDF, Excel to PDF, PDF to JPG and JPG to PDF, add/remove a watermark and more.
