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Compress

Use Ghostscript pdfwrite locally for lossy PDF compression. Text stays selectable when Ghostscript can rewrite the file; the raster fallback makes text non-selectable.

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Overview

About Compress

Reach for Compress when a PDF is bloated by photos, scans, or screenshots and you need a smaller file to email or upload elsewhere. It runs Ghostscript's pdfwrite locally in your browser, downsampling images with a lossy preset you pick: screen for the smallest result, then ebook, printer, and prepress for progressively higher quality. When Ghostscript can rewrite the file cleanly, your real text stays selectable. If a PDF resists that, it falls back to re-rendering each page as an image, which shrinks it but turns the text into flat pixels you can no longer select or search.

How it works

How to compress

1

Add your file

Drop it in or click to choose. It stays on your device.

2

Set options

Tweak the settings, or just use the sensible defaults.

3

Download the result

One click. It was built right here, in your browser.

The honest difference

Why Unfleece vs fleeceware

Unfleece

  • Runs in your browser — no file upload
  • Free, no account, no card
  • Open source (AGPL-3.0)
  • No file-size paywall

Typical fleeceware site

  • Uploads your file to a server
  • $1 trial → ~$50 / week
  • Closed and opaque
  • Locks results behind pay
Questions

Frequently asked

Will the text stay selectable after compressing?
Usually yes, because Ghostscript rewrites the file while keeping your real text intact. But if a PDF can't be rewritten cleanly and the raster fallback kicks in, each page is re-rendered as an image, so the text becomes flat pixels you can no longer select or search.
What do the screen, ebook, printer, and prepress presets do?
They set how aggressively images are downsampled, trading file size against quality. Screen is the smallest and lowest quality; ebook and printer sit in the middle; prepress keeps the most detail and produces the largest file.
Is the compression lossy, and what files is it best for?
Yes, this is lossy compression that discards image detail to shrink the file, so it works best on image-heavy or scanned PDFs. Text-only documents have little to squeeze and may not get much smaller.
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Ghostscript runs as WebAssembly right in your browser, so your file never leaves your device. Open the Network tab while you compress and you will see no file-upload request.
Keep going

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