All tools

How to make a PDF small enough to email

1 min read

Most email services cap attachments at around 20 to 25 MB, and many upload portals set a much lower limit. A PDF is usually too big because of the images inside it, especially scans.

Three things to try

  1. Compress the file with the Compress PDF tool and pick the Balanced level.
  2. If only some pages matter, use Split PDF to send just those pages.
  3. Remove blank or unneeded pages with Delete PDF Pages.

Keep your original file. Compression saves pages as images, so text in the compressed copy cannot be selected.