@nigelnguyen/2fcompresspdf

Pure JS PDF compressor CLI/library.

• No Ghostscript
• Uses pdfjs-dist to render pages
• Uses @napi-rs/canvas to rasterize pages in Node
• Uses pdf-lib to write the compressed PDF
• Cross-platform npm install, depending on @napi-rs/canvas prebuilt support

Install

npm i -g @nigelnguyen/2fcompresspdf

CLI

cpf input.pdf --dpi 300
cpf input.pdf --dpi 100 --output output.pdf
cpf input.pdf --dpi 100 --font-mode native
cpf input.pdf -d 50 -o small.pdf

Output default:

input-compressed-100dpi.pdf

Options

-d, --dpi <number>       Target DPI, 10..300. Default: 72
-o, --output <path>      Output PDF path
-q, --quality <number>   JPEG quality, 0.1..0.95. Default: auto by DPI
--font-mode <mode>       Font render mode: path|native. Default: path
--json                   Print JSON result
--quiet                  Hide progress
-h, --help               Show help
-v, --version            Show version

Library

const { compressPdfFile, compressPdfBuffer } = require('@nigelnguyen/2fcompresspdf');

await compressPdfFile('input.pdf', {
  dpi: 100,
  output: 'output.pdf',
});

Important tradeoff

This compressor rasterizes each PDF page into a JPEG image, then builds a new PDF.

Pros:

• DPI actually affects output size
• no Ghostscript/system dependency
• works locally, no server/upload limit

Cons:

• text/vector become images
• output is not searchable/selectable
• large PDFs need enough local RAM/CPU

Publish

npm login
npm publish --access public