PDF Compression Settings Explained: Quality, Size, and Selectable Text
Understand PDF compression quality settings, file-size tradeoffs, and why selectable text can change after compression.
Choose compression based on the document
The right setting depends on whether the file contains selectable text, photographs, or scanned pages. A high setting preserves detail; a lower setting creates a smaller file by re-encoding page content.
A practical quality guide
- High quality: contracts, forms, signatures, and small text.
- Medium quality: ordinary reports and mixed documents.
- Lower quality: image-heavy scans when upload size matters most.
- Always open the downloaded result and check the pages.
Selectable text and image-based output
Text-native PDFs can keep selectable text at lossless settings. When pages become images at lower settings, text may no longer be copyable. Use the word-count tool as a quick content check.
When this tool is not enough
Use dedicated OCR when you need to recognize text in a scan. Use a full PDF editor for annotations, redaction, or certificate-based signing.