PDF Compressor

Compress a PDF from a public URL or a file upload. Files up to 256 MB are supported. The compressed PDF is written to the run's default key-value store, together with a machine-readable OUTPUT record.

The Actor uses an enterprise-grade PDF compression engine to remove redundant objects and recompress images while keeping the document readable. It is intended to be called through the Apify API or from Apify Console.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
url	string	sample GeoTopo PDF	Public HTTP(S) URL of the PDF.
fileUpload	string	-	Uploaded PDF or Apify key-value store record URL. Takes precedence over url.
compressionLevel	string	recommended	low, recommended, or extreme.

Compression levels

Level	Image resolution	JPEG quality	Best for
low	300 DPI	90	Print quality, scans, documents with fine detail
recommended	150 DPI	75	General web and email use
extreme	96 DPI	50	The smallest possible file, image-heavy PDFs

If the compressor cannot make the PDF smaller, the original PDF is returned unchanged under the _compress.pdf name. Password-protected PDFs are rejected because their content cannot be optimized.

Output

For an input named input.pdf, the compressed file is stored in the run's default key-value store under input_compress.pdf with content type application/pdf.

When the run finishes, the Output tab in Apify Console lists the compressed PDF and links to the OUTPUT record. These links are defined in .actor/output_schema.json.

An OUTPUT JSON record describes the result:

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "Compressed 5.1 MB to 1.7 MB (66.5% smaller).",
  "input": {
    "source": "https://example.com/GeoTopo.pdf",
    "filename": "GeoTopo.pdf",
    "bytes": 5321132,
    "mb": "5.1 MB"
  },
  "output": {
    "key": "GeoTopo_compress.pdf",
    "filename": "GeoTopo_compress.pdf",
    "contentType": "application/pdf",
    "bytes": 1783266,
    "mb": "1.7 MB",
    "compressionRatio": 0.335,
    "savedPercent": 66.5,
    "downloadUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/STORE_ID/records/GeoTopo_compress.pdf?signature=..."
  },
  "compressionLevel": "recommended",
  "pricing": {
    "eventName": "pdf-mb",
    "unitPriceUsd": 0.001,
    "chargedEvents": 6,
    "estimatedCostUsd": 0.006,
    "charged": true,
    "actorStart": {
      "eventName": "apify-actor-start",
      "unitPriceUsd": 0.002,
      "events": 1,
      "estimatedCostUsd": 0.002,
      "chargedAutomatically": true
    },
    "estimatedTotalCostUsd": 0.008
  },
  "limits": {
    "memoryMb": 512,
    "maxMemoryMb": 512,
    "diskMb": 1024,
    "maxInputBytes": 268435456,
    "maxInputMb": 256
  }
}

On failure, success is false, error.code identifies the problem, and error.message contains a user-facing explanation. The OUTPUT record is written for both successful and failed runs.

Filename rules

• input.pdf -> input_compress.pdf
• report.PDF -> report_compress.PDF
• report -> report_compress.pdf

Only PDF input is accepted. The URL does not need to end in .pdf; the downloaded content is checked for a PDF header, and non-PDF content is rejected with NOT_A_PDF before compression starts.

Filenames are sanitized before use with a cross-platform filename cleaner. Directory components are removed, characters that are invalid in filenames are stripped, reserved device names are defused, and trailing dots or spaces are removed. The remaining name is then normalized to letters, digits, ., _, and -, and truncated to a safe length. For example, hello world.pdf becomes hello_world_compress.pdf.

Pricing

The Actor uses pay-per-event (PPE) pricing with two charges.

Per-run fee

Apify charges the synthetic apify-actor-start event automatically at $0.002 per start ($2 per 1,000 runs). It applies to every run, including runs that later fail, and is not charged by the Actor code.

The event is charged once for every run. Because the Actor's memory is fixed at 512 MB, each run incurs exactly one start event ($0.002).

Per-MB fee

The Actor charges the event pdf-mb once per started megabyte of the input file, at $0.001 per event:

• 1 byte to 1 MB -> 1 event -> $0.001
• 5.1 MB -> 6 events -> $0.006
• 128 MB -> 128 events -> $0.128
• 256 MB -> 256 events -> $0.256

This event is charged only after the compressed PDF has been saved to the key-value store. Failed runs, including oversized inputs, are not charged for pdf-mb.

Total cost

Input	Start fee	pdf-mb	Total
1 byte to 1 MB	$0.002	$0.001	$0.003
5.1 MB	$0.002	$0.006	$0.008
128 MB	$0.002	$0.128	$0.130
256 MB	$0.002	$0.256	$0.258

The pricing object in OUTPUT reports both the pdf-mb charge and the automatic start fee.

Size limits

The Actor runs with 512 MB of memory and 1 GB of disk (Apify gives each run disk space equal to twice its memory). To leave headroom for the compression engine and the output file, the input limit is half the memory:

max input size = memory / 2 = 256 MB

Memory	Disk	Maximum input
512 MB (fixed)	1 GB	256 MB

The Actor checks the remote Content-Length before downloading. If the server does not report a size, the same limit is enforced while streaming the download. An oversized file produces an OUTPUT record with error.code = "FILE_TOO_LARGE" and no pdf-mb charge.

Files larger than 256 MB cannot be processed by this Actor; split them into smaller PDFs before uploading. The default run timeout is 10 minutes.

Calling the API

Start an asynchronous run:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/OWNER~pdf-compress-api/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/py-pdf/sample-files/main/009-pdflatex-geotopo/GeoTopo.pdf",
    "compressionLevel": "recommended"
  }'

The response contains data.id, data.defaultKeyValueStoreId, and data.status. Poll the run, then read the metadata and download the result:

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/RUN_ID?token=$APIFY_TOKEN"

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/STORE_ID/records/OUTPUT?token=$APIFY_TOKEN"

curl -OJ "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/STORE_ID/records/GeoTopo_compress.pdf?token=$APIFY_TOKEN"

Synchronous call (waits for the run to finish):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/OWNER~pdf-compress-api/run-sync?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com/input.pdf"}'

Uploading a file is also supported. Upload the PDF to a key-value store, then pass the record URL as fileUpload:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/OWNER~pdf-compress-api/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "fileUpload": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/STORE_ID/records/input.pdf",
    "compressionLevel": "extreme"
  }'

Error codes

Code	Meaning
INVALID_INPUT	Missing/invalid URL, unsupported scheme, or invalid compression level.
DOWNLOAD_FAILED	The source could not be downloaded (DNS, TLS, HTTP 4xx/5xx, timeout).
EMPTY_FILE	The source returned an empty file.
NOT_A_PDF	The file is not a valid PDF or has no readable pages.
PASSWORD_PROTECTED	The PDF is encrypted and needs a password.
COMPRESSION_FAILED	The compressor could not optimize the document.
UPLOAD_FAILED	The result could not be written to the key-value store.
FILE_TOO_LARGE	The input exceeds the run's memory-derived limit.
TEMP_DIR_FAILED	The run could not create a temporary directory.

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