Compress PDF

Give it the number the portal actually wants. Not “low, medium, high.”

This tool runs in your browser. Your document is not uploaded. What happens to your files

How should it compress?Lossless — keep the text searchableRewrites the file’s structure only. Text, bookmarks and form fields stay. How much it saves depends on the file. Best for filings that must stay searchable.Hit an exact size limitRecompresses the images inside the file to reach your number, and keeps the text. Images lose some sharpness. If that is not enough, a scan is re-rendered as pictures. A mostly-text document is refused rather than flattened.

Choose a fileProcessed on your device. Your document is not uploaded.

How it works

Choose one PDF.
Select lossless compression or a target size.
Run the compressor, inspect the result, and download it.

Key benefit

Lossless mode preserves text and document structure; target mode works toward a real byte ceiling.

Supported files and key limits

Input: PDF. Output: PDF.

Target-size mode downsamples and recompresses images, so photographs and scans lose sharpness. Only a scan or image-only file is rasterized, which removes its text layer; a text-heavy file is refused instead unless you accept that loss.

Why give it a number

A portal that rejects your file does not care that it is “a bit smaller”. You need to be under one specific number, and you need to know before you submit. So this tool asks for the limit and tells you what reaching it costs.

Two ways to get smaller

Lossless rewrites the file’s structure: object streams, Flate recompression, orphaned objects. Text stays selectable, and bookmarks and form fields survive. How much it saves depends on what is in the file. A text document saved by untidy software can shrink a lot. A scan barely changes, because its bytes are image data and lossless compression leaves image data alone. If every rewrite comes out larger, you get the original back untouched and the tool says so.

Exact size downsamples and recompresses the images inside the file and looks for the highest quality that fits your limit, while the text stays selectable and searchable. That suits a scanned passport going to USCIS or a tax attachment with a 1.5 MB cap. A scan or image-only file is rasterized if it must be, but a mostly-text PDF is not: if image recompression cannot reach the limit, the tool says so and names the smallest size it reached, unless you consent to losing the text layer.

What a round-number limit leaves for each page

Most forms ask for a round number rather than naming a portal. What that number means depends on how many pages share it and what is on them. File structure takes a few kilobytes before any image is stored, so these budgets are approximate.

100 KB leaves roughly 19 KB a page across five pages. Clean black-and-white text survives that. Photographs and shadowed phone scans do not.
200 KB gives a three-page form about 65 KB a page, but a ten-page file is back to the budget a five-page file gets at 100 KB.
500 KB is often reachable losslessly for an invoice or a word-processor export. A ten-page scan gets about 49 KB a page.
1 MB is the usual résumé limit, and a text résumé is normally well under it already. When it is not, an embedded photo or a high-resolution scan is usually why, and removing that helps more than compressing.
2 MB is plenty for a passport page or an ID card. Check that the small print at the bottom of a passport page is still sharp before you upload.
5 MB leaves about 127 KB a page for a 40-page report. That is generous for scanned text and tight for full-page colour photographs.
10 MB is a common court-filing cap. A long appendix is usually better split into several files with Split PDF than squeezed into one.

The limits people actually hit

CM/ECF — 2nd Circuit (10 MB): Federal court e-filing. There is no national limit, because each court sets its own. The Second Circuit allows 10 MB per PDF and up to 10 attachments, each under 10 MB. Check your court before filing, and avoid flattening a filing into images: readers can no longer search it.
VFS Japan eVisa documents (2 MB): Singapore applications for a Japan eVisa through VFS Global. PDF or TIF, one file per category. Other VFS routes can use different rules, so check the page for your application route.
EU Settlement Scheme evidence (6 MB): UK residence evidence for an EU Settlement Scheme application. GOV.UK allows up to 10 documents, each no more than 6 MB. This is not a universal UK visa upload limit.
USCIS online filing (12 MB): Per uploaded file. PDF, JPG or JPEG, and TIF or TIFF for some forms. USCIS also says not to encrypt or password protect your files.
Oracle Taleo Basic default (1 MB): The documented Basic-package default is 1 MB per attachment. Taleo attachment limits are configurable, so the employer's displayed limit always wins.
Gmail attachment headroom (18 MB): A conservative compression target, not Gmail's published limit. Personal Gmail allows 25 MB total attachments and converts larger files to a Google Drive link.
Lacerte e-file attachment (1.5 MB): Intuit Lacerte limits each PDF attachment to 1.5 MB, with 32 MB combined, and suggests re-scanning oversized PDFs in black and white at a lower resolution. Filing trouble can begin around 20 MB combined.

Every limit above comes from official documentation and applies only to the named workflow, with one exception: Gmail’s 18 MB is PDFOak’s own headroom below Google’s published 25 MB total-attachment limit. Each source, scope and check date is in the PDF file-size limits reference. A court-specific rule or a single visa route is never a universal limit.

Workday is not listed because no official source defines one universal attachment limit. Follow the limit your employer’s portal shows.

Size is not the only reason a file gets rejected

USCIS asks you not to encrypt or password protect uploaded files, and a protected PDF is refused whatever it weighs. Bank statements and payslips often arrive protected, so take the password off with Unlock PDF before you compress. Compressing a document nobody can open does not help.