You don't need special software to shrink a PDF's file size on Linux. FernPDF runs entirely in Firefox or Chrome on Linux: open the tool, drop your file, download the result. Compression re-encodes the document on your device. Image-heavy and scanned PDFs shrink the most, often 60–90%.
No hunting for the right CLI flags or building tools from source. A browser is the only dependency, on any distribution.
Step by step
1Open the Compress PDF tool.
2Drop your PDF, and you'll see the original size immediately.
3Pick a level: Less, Recommended, or Strong, and preview the estimated savings.
4Click “Compress PDF” and download the smaller file.
No upload · no account · no watermark
FAQ
Common questions
Yes, FernPDF is a web app, so it runs in Firefox or Chrome on Linux with no installation. All processing happens on your device using WebAssembly.
Yes. Every core FernPDF tool is free, with no account, no watermark, and no trial limits.
It depends on the content. Image-heavy PDFs often shrink 60–90%; text-only files less. The estimate updates live as you pick a level, and you only download if you’re happy with the result.
“Recommended” is visually lossless for most documents. “Strong” downsamples images more aggressively for the smallest size. You preview the trade-off before downloading.