Compress PDF to Exact Size (100 KB, 200 KB, 1 MB)

About the Compress PDF to Exact Size (100 KB, 200 KB, 1 MB)

Exam, job, visa and bank portals often refuse PDFs over a fixed size — 100 KB, 200 KB, 500 KB or 1 MB. Instead of guessing compression settings, choose the limit and this tool finds the settings for you. It uses the same engine as the PDF Compressor: photos and scans are re-encoded and, where they are much sharper than needed, reduced in resolution, while text, fonts and drawings stay exactly as they are — still sharp, selectable and searchable. It tries the settings from the sharpest down and keeps the sharpest file that fits, optionally in greyscale.

Some PDFs can’t get that small with their text kept as text, because the fonts, text and drawings alone are bigger than the limit. The tool says so, explains where the bytes are, and offers to turn the pages into images instead — with a clear warning about readability and a preview, rather than a misleading result. Everything happens in your browser; the PDF is never uploaded.

Common uses

• Getting a scanned mark sheet, certificate or ID under the 200 KB or 300 KB limit of an exam or job application form.
• Making a bank statement or salary slip fit a loan or visa portal’s 1 MB or 2 MB limit.
• Shrinking a photo-heavy report so it fits an email or chat app’s attachment limit.
• Preparing several documents to the same size before uploading them one by one.

How the size search works

The settings are arranged from sharpest to smallest: first lossless optimisation only, then JPEG quality and image resolution stepping down — 85% quality at full resolution, then 300, 220, 175 and 150 DPI, then lower quality and resolution down to 72 DPI at 30% quality. Every step can only make the file smaller.

• Usually the smallest step is tried first: if even that is over the limit, the tool stops at once and explains why, instead of trying everything. When the limit is close to the file’s size, the sharpest step is tried first instead, because it often fits.
• With Greyscale ticked, lossless optimisation is skipped: only the image steps turn photos grey.
• Otherwise it halves the range each time (a binary search), then tries one or two settings between the last two steps to squeeze out a little more sharpness. That is usually six to nine attempts.
• Each attempt is a real compression of the whole file, and only results at or under the limit are kept. The final file is reopened and checked before it is offered.
• An image that comes out the same in several attempts is re-encoded only once, so later attempts are faster.

The engine only lowers an image’s resolution when it is more than 1.3 times sharper than the step’s limit, and never when it can’t tell how large the image is drawn on the page. The result panel says exactly what was done.

When the limit can’t be reached

Fonts, text and vector drawings are already stored compactly and can’t be shrunk without changing how they look. Some images are kept exactly as they are because re-encoding them could damage them: images with transparent areas (such as logos and artwork saved as PNG), CMYK print images, masks, JPEG 2000 images, and black-and-white scans stored with fax-style (CCITT) or JBIG2 compression, which are already very small. When these alone are over your limit, compressing the photos can’t help, and the tool tells you which part is too big.

You can then turn every page into a JPEG image. That can be much smaller, but the text is no longer real text: it can’t be selected, copied or searched, links and form fields are removed, and small print becomes harder to read as the resolution drops. The tool measures sample pages to pick the sharpest page resolution that fits (from 200 DPI down to 72 DPI), builds the file and checks its real size, shows how readable that resolution is, and lets you compare the pages before you download. If even 72 DPI page images are too big — common for long documents and small limits — it says so; send fewer pages instead.

Tips for upload portals

• Scan paper documents at 150–200 DPI in greyscale: that is plenty for reading and much smaller than 600 DPI colour.
• Upload only the pages that are asked for; remove the rest with PDF Page Extractor.
• If you have photos of a document rather than a PDF, combine them with Image to PDF first, then compress the result here.
• After compressing, open the file once and zoom in on the smallest text, such as roll numbers and dates — the person checking it will need to read them.

Limitations

• Password-protected or encrypted PDFs must be unlocked first with Unlock PDF.
• Any change to a digitally signed PDF invalidates its signature; the tool warns you when a file is signed.
• Greyscale applies to the photos and scans that are re-encoded; coloured text and drawings, and images that are kept exactly as they are, keep their colours unless the pages are turned into images.
• Files up to 200 MB. Every attempt recompresses the whole file, so large, photo-heavy PDFs can take a few minutes, especially on phones.
• Page images remove selectable text, links, bookmarks and form fields; the original file is never changed.
• The first use downloads the PDF engines, so it needs an internet connection once.

Privacy

Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.