How to Reduce PDF Size to 200 KB or 100 KB (Free, No Upload)

Job portals, university admissions and government websites often ask for documents as a PDF "not exceeding 200 KB". A single phone scan can be 3–5 MB. Here is how to shrink it — and what to do if it is still too big.

Method: Compress PDF in your browser

1. Open Compress PDF and drop your file.
2. Choose Recommended and press Compress PDF. The new size is shown before you download.
3. Still too big? Choose Strong, and tick black & white for text documents. This usually gets a one-page scan well under 200 KB.

The PDF is processed on your device, so certificates, bank statements and ID cards are never uploaded.

Which setting gets you to which size?

If your PDF is still too large

• Split it. Many portals have separate upload slots for each document. Upload only the pages they ask for.
• Rebuild it from smaller images. Compress each scan with Compress Image to KB (for example 60 KB per page), then combine them with JPG to PDF.
• Crop the margins of each scan with the image cropper before making the PDF. Big white borders still cost bytes.

Scan smarter so files start smaller

• Use your phone's document scanner mode — it straightens the page and whitens the background.
• Scan in good daylight; grey, shadowy pages compress badly.
• For text-only documents, black & white is perfectly readable and much smaller.

FAQ

Will the text still be readable?

At the Light and Recommended levels, yes. At Strong, small print may get slightly soft, so zoom in on the result before submitting.

Can I select text after compressing?

No — pages are saved as images to make them smaller. Keep the original if you need to copy text.

What about photos, not PDFs?

See our guide to compressing a photo to 20 KB.