What makes a PDF large
PDFs can contain text, embedded fonts, vector drawings and images. A short scanned document can be much larger than a long text document because every page is stored as a picture. The size of a file alone does not reveal how much can be saved: some PDFs already use efficient compression.
How Folio compresses PDFs
Folio rewrites and compresses PDF content streams. It does not offer an image-quality slider or aggressively downsample scanned photographs. Select one PDF under 10 MB with no more than 50 pages and choose Convert document. If the generated file would be the same size or larger, the tool returns your original bytes as the download.
Compare the result
Check the downloaded file size, then review the pages in a reader. Text, diagrams and page count matter more than a small difference in bytes. A file renamed with the converted suffix is not proof of a reduction: it may be the original because further compression did not help.
When the attachment is still too big
Return to the source document and export only the pages needed. If you control the original images, resize them before creating a new PDF, while keeping text legible. You can also split a document when the recipient accepts multiple attachments. Keep an untouched original whenever you experiment with image quality.
Ready to put it into practice?
No account required. Keep your original and review your converted file.
Open Compress PDF →