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Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali

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I added a free Compress PDF tool with 3 quality levels (no sign-up, no watermark)

#showdev #webdev #productivity #pdf

I just added a Compress PDF tool to MyPDFLabs, my free set of online PDF tools. Big PDFs are one of the most common problems people run into, so I wanted to share what it does and what I focused on.

Why a compress tool?

You finish a document and then something blocks you:

  • An email bounces because the attachment is too big
  • A job portal rejects your application because of a 5 MB upload limit
  • A scanned document is far larger than it needs to be
  • A merged PDF turns into one huge file

Most of the tools I found for this wanted an account, added a watermark, or gave me no say in how much quality I was giving up. I wanted something simple: open the page, upload a file, choose how strong the compression should be, and download the result.

What it does

  • Three compression levels. Maximum Compression for the smallest file, Balanced for good compression with good quality, and Less Compression for higher quality and a larger file.
  • Original size shown up front, so you can see how much you saved.
  • No sign-up and no watermark on the core tools.
  • Files up to 500MB.
  • Automatic deletion. Uploaded files are deleted after processing.

The savings depend on the file. A scan or a PDF full of photos can shrink a lot, while a mostly-text PDF has little to remove. I show approximate figures for each level, but they're estimates, not promises.

What I thought about while building it

Compression sounds simple, but a few things mattered more than I expected:

  • Quality is a trade-off, so give people control. A smaller file is only useful if it's still readable, so I added levels instead of one fixed setting.
  • Show the result clearly. People want to know how much space they saved before they download.
  • Be honest about the numbers. The size reduction varies by file, so the tool shouldn't claim more than it can deliver.
  • Privacy matters. People compress contracts, IDs and CVs, so I decided not to keep files around and not to ask for an account.

What I'd like feedback on

The site is still new, so I'd love honest opinions:

  1. Are the three levels easy to understand, or would you prefer a slider?
  2. Which level do you reach for most, and why?
  3. Which PDF tool should I add or improve next?

You can try it here: mypdflabs.com/tools/compress

Thanks for reading, and I'll reply to every comment.

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