How to compress a PDF to 50 KB
50 KB is not one of the ready-made sizes, so choose Other and type 50. Compress then finds the sharpest version of your PDF that fits.
CompressFree. Nothing is uploaded.
How to do it
- Open Compress and add your PDF.
- Choose To a size, then Other.
- Type 50 in Size in KB.
- Tick Let pages become pictures if the PDF is a scan of more than one page.
- Press Compress it, then save the result.
How much fits in 50 KB
Fifty kilobytes is very little. One clear page of a certificate or ID usually fits, especially in black and white. Three or four scanned pages often do not, unless each page is turned into a fairly soft picture. Compress tells you what it did, and if 50 KB is too small for the file to stay readable it says that instead of handing you an unreadable page.
Ways to make it fit
Send only what is asked for. If the form wants the first page of a marksheet, keep that page alone with Extract pages, or break the file into single pages with Split.
Photograph it again with Scan and choose Black and white. Shadows go, the paper turns white and the file is a fraction of the size of a colour photo, which leaves more of the 50 KB for sharpness.
Any size you need
Other takes any size from 10 KB up, so the same steps work for 20 KB, 30 KB or 300 KB. For the common limits there are guides for 100 KB and 200 KB.
Where 50 KB limits turn up
Very small limits usually apply to a single page: a signature, a caste or domicile certificate, a photo ID, a category certificate on a recruitment or exam portal. They are normally set per document, and the instructions often give a format and sometimes pixel sizes as well. Read those first. If the portal asks for a JPG rather than a PDF, this is the wrong tool: save the page with PDF to images as a JPEG at Screen sharpness instead.
A worked example
Suppose a form wants your Class 10 certificate as a PDF under 50 KB, and you have a colour phone photo of it. Open Scan, add the photo, check the corners, choose Black and white and A4, and press Make the PDF. Tap Then and choose Compress. Choose To a size, then Other, type 50, tick Let pages become pictures, and press Compress it.
A single black and white page usually fits. Zoom in on the result to check that your name, the roll number and the marks are still clear before you upload it.
When it says 50 KB is too small
If the result says the limit is too small for the file to stay readable, take it seriously: an unreadable upload can get an application rejected just as surely as one that is too big. Cut the file down to the one page that matters, take the photo again in better light, or check whether the portal allows a larger size for that kind of document. Some forms list different limits for different documents on the same page.
Questions people ask
What is the smallest size I can ask for?
10 KB. Below that, a page cannot hold enough detail to be read.
Will the words still be selectable?
Only if photo shrinking alone was enough. If pages had to become pictures to fit, the result says so and the words are part of the picture.
Does the tool add a watermark or a logo?
No. Nothing is added to your document, ever.
Why is my one-page PDF so far over 50 KB to start with?
A phone photo of one page is usually a few MB, because it records every shade of the paper and the table around it. Scanning it in black and white throws away what the page does not need.
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