The engine resamples embedded images to the level’s DPI target relative to the page, re-encodes them, and keeps a new image only if it is at least 8% smaller; text is never rasterized, duplicate streams are stored once, and compressing twice never degrades a file. Nothing is uploaded, so the analysis of a confidential deck happens entirely on your machine and the original stays as it was. The published benchmark at /compression-benchmark shows measured results on the sample files. If the file is over 200 MB, split it first — Compress needs the document in memory.
How it works
- Open Bindery in your Mac browser and drop the PDF into Compress
- Read the three computed sizes and compare with your target
- Download the level that fits; check small text at 200% zoom in Preview
Questions people ask
Why does Preview’s Reduce File Size look so bad?
The Quartz filter behind it downsamples every image aggressively with a single fixed setting and no preview. Bindery uses resolution targets relative to the page — 150 DPI for Balanced, 96 for Email & web — and shows you the resulting size before you commit, with a lossless option if pixels must stay identical.
Will it work in Safari?
Yes. Compression runs in a background worker inside Safari, Chrome, Firefox or Edge on macOS, and can be cancelled at any point. The only Chrome- and Edge-specific extras are saving straight into a chosen folder and opening PDFs from Finder with the installed app.
Does the free plan include compression?
Yes — all 47 tools are free, with ten completed jobs per UTC day and no file-size cap of Bindery’s own. There is no account to create. Pro, at $5 a month, removes the daily limit and syncs recipes and presets between your browsers.