Reduce a PDF to an exact size

When a form says "PDF must be under 2 MB"

Online applications, tax portals, job sites and email services often reject a document over a fixed size. General compressors give you a quality slider and leave you guessing. This tool starts from the limit instead: you type the size you are allowed and it works until the file fits, or tells you honestly that it cannot.

How it gets under the limit

It tries the gentlest option first and only escalates when needed:

1. Shrink the images. Photos and scans inside the PDF are recompressed, trying progressively stronger settings. The text and vector graphics are untouched, so the text stays selectable.
2. Turn pages into images. If the images alone cannot reach the limit, and you allow it, each page is rendered as a picture at the highest quality that fits. The document looks the same, but the text is no longer selectable or searchable.

You are always told which method was used, so you know whether the text is still live. If you would rather keep the text at any cost, untick the option to convert pages to images.

Tips for very tight limits

• If the file came from a scan, rescanning at 150 to 200 dpi in grayscale is far better than compressing a 600 dpi color scan.
• A 1 MB limit for a long scanned document may simply be too small. Consider splitting it into parts if the portal allows several files.
• Check which limit really applies. Some portals set one per file and another for the whole submission.

Signed documents

Reducing a PDF changes the file, so any digital signature in it will no longer be valid in the new copy. You are warned when a file is signed. If the signature matters, contact the portal, or shrink the document before it is signed.

More options

For a quality-based reduction without a fixed target, use the PDF compressor. To combine documents into one file first, use merge PDF.