Large PDFs under 2 MB
A 2 MB limit is usually set for long documents: project reports, internship and thesis chapters, scanned answer booklets, tender documents and annual statements. These files are often far bigger than the limit because of scanned pages or full-page photos, not because of their text.
The target here is 2,000,000 bytes, slightly under 2 MB however a portal counts megabytes, so the copy passes the check.
Typed reports usually keep their text
A report written in Word or a similar app and saved as PDF stores its words as text and its fonts once. The lossless first step rewrites the file more tightly and often brings it under 2 MB with nothing changed: text stays selectable, links still work and pages look exactly the same. Only when that is not enough are pages redrawn as pictures.
Scanned booklets and long scans
A scanned booklet of 40 or 60 pages is a collection of large pictures. Redrawn for 2 MB, each page gets an equal share of the budget at one sharpness level for the whole document. For printed pages, black and white keeps text crisp at a far higher DPI than colour; for pages with photographs or coloured diagrams, leave colour on.
- The tool takes up to 100 pages and 25 MB at a time.
- Long PDFs take longer, because every page is drawn on your device. Keep the tab open until the result appears.
- If a 100-page scan cannot stay readable at 2 MB, split it as the portal allows and compress each part.
Before you upload
Open the copy and scroll through it: every page should be there, in order, at its original page size. Zoom in on a page with small print. The size shown in the result is the exact size of the download.
Other sizes
For smaller limits, compress PDF to 1 MB or compress PDF to 500 KB. Any other number works on compress PDF.
Built on two open-source projects that run in your browser: qpdf, compiled to WebAssembly, for the lossless rewrite, and Mozilla's PDF.js to redraw pages when that is not enough.