Which PDF Compression Level Should You Choose?
Low vs medium vs high — decision tree for legal, email, and portal uploads.
Published June 8, 2025 · 1 min read
Choosing the wrong compression level either wastes megabytes or blurs fine print. Here is a decision tree used by document teams.
Low compression
Legal agreements, engineering drawings with thin lines, PDFs destined for print.
Medium compression
Default for business email — brochures, slide exports, mixed text and photos.
High compression
Portal uploads with 2 MB caps, mobile preview copies, internal drafts where sharp photos are not critical.
Test on one page first if unsure — open zoomed to 100% and read footnotes.
Sources & references
Primary references used when researching and fact-checking this guide. See our editorial methodology.
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Ghostscript documentation — PDF settings
— Artifex Software
Compression level behavior and PDF output settings.