How to make a PDF smaller than 1 MB

Government portals, job applications and email providers often cap uploads at 1 or 2 MB. Most PDFs that go over are big for one reason: images. Text barely registers. A 30-page report of plain text can be 200 KB, while a 3-page scan from a phone can be 15 MB.

1. Find out what's inside

If you can select the text in the PDF, it's a text document, possibly with pictures. If you can't, it's a scan: every page is one big image. That decides which step works.

2. Compress the images, keeping the text

Open Compress PDF and choose Balanced. It re-saves the images at screen resolution and leaves text untouched, so it stays sharp and searchable. Photos and scans usually shrink by more than half. If you're still over the limit, try Strong.

3. Remove pages you don't need

Forms often only need the signed pages. Extract Pages or Delete PDF Pages can cut a document down to what's asked for.

4. As a last resort, flatten pages to images

Compress PDF's Smallest option turns every page into a moderate-quality JPEG. It nearly always gets under 1 MB, but text can no longer be selected or searched. For scanned documents that doesn't matter, since they had no real text to begin with.

5. Split if you must

If a portal lets you upload several files, Split PDF can divide a large document into parts under the limit.

Scanning tip for next time

Scan at 150-200 DPI in greyscale rather than 600 DPI colour. For documents, the difference is invisible on screen, and the file is a fraction of the size.