Frequently asked questions
My portal says "PDF must be less than 100 KB" — will this work?
Yes — that's exactly what this tool is for. It compresses to the highest quality that stays under 100 KB, so the document remains clearly readable for the reviewer.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The PDF is rendered and rebuilt by your own browser. It never touches a server — safe even for bank statements and ID documents.
Will the text still be selectable?
For strong compression the pages are converted to high-quality images, so text is no longer selectable. Upload portals don't care — but keep your original for editing.
The strictest PDF limit you'll meet
100 KB is an aggressive cap for a PDF, and it turns up on the most tightly-configured government portals — single-page certificates, ID proofs and declaration uploads where the field was set up to accept only the smallest documents. Hitting it takes real compression, but it's very achievable for a short, text-based file.
What compresses to 100 KB well — and what struggles
A one-page typed document, a simple certificate, or a clean single-page form compresses under 100 KB while staying perfectly legible. Where it gets hard is colour scans and photo-heavy pages: forcing those under 100 KB can soften the text noticeably. If your document is a multi-page scan, consider whether the portal really needs 100 KB or whether you've picked the strictest preset out of habit.
How to get there cleanly
- Start from a digital PDF rather than a scan wherever you can — exporting a document straight to PDF is far smaller than photographing it.
- Trim spare pages. Fewer pages means more size budget for the ones that matter.
- If it's a scan, scan in grayscale at a moderate resolution before compressing — colour and high DPI are what push scans over tight limits.
Set the target to 100 KB above and check the result opens cleanly. If the text comes out too soft, the 200 KB preset usually keeps it sharp while still meeting most limits.