Meeting PDF size limits on job and government portals
, 5 min read
Portals that serve millions of applicants set tight limits because storage and bandwidth cost real money at that scale. The limits are rarely negotiable, so the task is to fit inside them without submitting something illegible.
Understand what is making it big
If your PDF was created from a Word file, it is probably already small and the limit will not be a problem. If it contains scans or photographs, each page might be 500 KB or more on its own. Everything below is about scans.
The order to try things
- Convert to greyscale. Scanning black text in colour triples the size for nothing. Grayscale PDF often halves a file on its own.
- Rescan at a sensible resolution. 200 DPI is plenty for text. 600 DPI produces files nine times larger with no benefit for printed documents.
- Remove pages nobody asked for. Blank backs of double sided scans are a common culprit.
- Use a targeted compressor. Compress PDF to 100 KB and Compress PDF to 200 KB search for the best quality that fits.
When it will not fit
A ten page colour scan will not become a readable 100 KB PDF. If you have hit that wall, check whether the portal accepts separate uploads per document, which is often the case and far better than submitting something nobody can read.
Before you submit
Open the compressed file and read it at 100 percent zoom. If a reviewing officer cannot make out your date of birth, the application fails regardless of what the upload form accepted. The goal is the smallest file that is still clearly legible.