Compress PDF to an exact size
Squeeze a PDF under a size limit — 100 KB, 200 KB, 1 MB, whatever the form demands.
Drop your file here
Processed securely and deleted within the hour.
Why an exact number matters
Most compression tools give you "low, medium, high" and leave you guessing. That is fine when you just want a smaller file, and useless when a form refuses anything over 100 KB. Government portals, university applications and exam boards all set hard caps, and a file that lands at 104 KB is rejected exactly as firmly as one at 4 MB.
So this tool works backwards from your number. It compresses, measures, and if the result is still too big it compresses harder, walking down a ladder of image quality and resolution settings until the file fits — then stops, so you keep as much quality as your limit allows.
What actually gets compressed
In almost every oversized PDF, the weight is images. A scanned page is a photograph of paper, and ten scanned pages are ten photographs. Text, by contrast, is tiny — a hundred pages of pure text rarely exceeds a few hundred kilobytes.
So the work here is finding every embedded image, re-encoding it as JPEG at a lower quality, and where necessary reducing its resolution. Pages that are genuinely text are left alone, because there is nothing to gain. This is also why a text-only PDF that is already 90 KB will barely shrink: there is no image weight to remove.
When it cannot reach your target
Sometimes the number is impossible. A forty-page colour scan will not become 100 KB and still be readable. When that happens you get told, along with the smallest size we actually achieved — not a file that quietly misses your limit. If that happens, the usual fixes are to split the document and upload it in parts, or to remove pages the form does not need.
Common targets
The most-requested limits have their own pages: 100 KB and 200 KB. Both use this same engine, with the number filled in.
Scans compress best
If your PDF came from a phone camera or a flatbed scanner, expect an enormous reduction — 80–95% is normal, because phone cameras save at a quality far beyond what a document needs. If it was exported from Word, expect much less: it was already efficient.
Common questions
Can any PDF be compressed to 100 KB?
No. A long colour scan cannot reach 100 KB and remain readable. We tell you the smallest size we managed rather than returning a file that misses your limit.
Will the text still be selectable?
Yes. Only images are re-encoded; the text layer is untouched, so you can still search and copy from the result.
Why did my file barely get smaller?
It was probably already efficient — a text-only PDF exported from Word has almost no image weight to remove.
Is the quality loss visible?
At mild targets, no. As the target tightens we reduce image quality and then resolution, and at very small sizes on a scan it will look softer. You choose the trade-off by choosing the number.
Are my files kept?
No. Each job runs in its own directory on the server and is deleted as soon as your download has been sent, with a sweeper removing anything a crash leaves behind.
Does it work on scanned documents?
That is exactly what it is best at. Scans are the case where 80–95% reductions are normal.