How to get a PDF under 200 KB
200 KB is the size Compress offers first. Open it, choose To a size, keep 200 KB selected and press Compress it.
CompressFree. Nothing is uploaded.
How to do it
- Open Compress and add the PDF, or several.
- Choose To a size.
- Leave 200 KB selected.
- Press Compress it.
- Check the new size in the result line, then save or share the file.
Several documents in one upload
Some forms take a single file for all your certificates. Put them together with Merge first, in the order the form lists them, then compress the merged file to 200 KB. Compressing each one first and merging afterwards usually gives a bigger file, because the limit was spent on each piece.
Keep the original
Compress always makes a new file and never changes the one you picked. Keep the original somewhere safe: a 200 KB copy is right for a portal, but not for printing or for a later form that allows more.
If the photos come out softer than you would like, try again at 500 KB if the form allows it, or cut the file down to the pages it needs with Extract pages.
Start small
The size of a scanned PDF comes almost entirely from its photos. A page made with Scan in Grey or Black and white starts much smaller than a colour photo, so it needs less squeezing and stays sharper at 200 KB.
What 200 KB can hold
As a rough guide, 200 KB comfortably holds one or two clear scanned pages, or many pages of a typed document with a logo or two. A typed PDF straight from a word processor or a bank’s website is often far under the limit already, because text takes very little space; the size of a PDF is almost always in its pictures. If yours is a scan of many pages, all of them share the same 200 KB, so expect softer photos the more pages there are.
A worked example
Say a scholarship form wants your caste certificate, income certificate and a marksheet as one PDF under 200 KB, and you have three phone photos of a few MB each. Open Scan, add the three photos, choose Black and white and A4, and press Make the PDF. Tap Then, choose Compress, pick To a size and 200 KB, and press Compress it.
The result line gives the new size and says how sharp the photos stayed. Open the file once before uploading and zoom in on the smallest print, such as a roll number, to check it can be read.
If the portal still refuses it
Some portals refuse a file for reasons other than its size: a password on the PDF, or a file name with spaces and symbols. Take any password off with Remove a password, rename the file to something plain such as marksheet.pdf, and try again. If the portal insists the size is wrong when it is not, make the file again with Other and a slightly lower size, such as 190.
Questions people ask
Why does my PDF come out at, say, 180 KB and not exactly 200?
Compress stops at the gentlest setting that fits under the limit, so the result is usually a little under it. That is the sharpest version that fits.
What if it cannot reach 200 KB?
The result says so and gives you the smallest file it could make with the text kept as text. Tick Let pages become pictures to go further.
Is there a limit on file size or how many I do?
No. There is no server, so there is nothing to limit. Your own device does the work.
Should I compress each certificate separately or together?
Follow the form. If it has one upload box per document, compress each one to the limit on its own. If it has one box for everything, merge first, then compress the merged file.
Your file stays on your device. Foolscap does the work inside your browser, so nothing is uploaded and there is nothing for anyone to keep. How you can check