Compress PDF to 200 KB
The middle ground: small enough for almost any upload form, large enough that a scanned page still looks like a document rather than a smudge.
Select a PDF file
or drop it here — the file never leaves your device
Working…
The size where scans start to survive
200 KB sits at a useful boundary. It is small enough to clear nearly every upload restriction you will meet, and it is the point at which a single scanned page stops looking damaged. At 100 KB a scan is fighting for every pixel; at 200 KB it has room to breathe.
What fits comfortably
- Text documents of any reasonable length — a ten-page report exported from Word will typically fit here without the tool needing to re-render anything.
- One to two scanned pages — readable, with printed text staying crisp enough to photocopy afterwards.
- A CV with a photo — the single most common thing people compress to this size.
What will struggle
Multi-page colour scans. The budget is shared across every page, so a six-page scan gets around 33 KB per page and detail disappears fast. If that is your situation, compress the pages you actually need rather than the whole bundle — splitting the document first is almost always the better move.
Why a target beats a slider
Most compressors ask you to choose "low, medium or high compression" and then show you the result. If it is still too big you guess again. That is backwards. Here you state the number your form demands, and the tool works out the settings — testing progressively, keeping the best version that fits, discarding the rest.
It also tries the lossless route first. Rewriting a PDF's internal structure and clearing out metadata costs nothing in quality, and on documents produced by office software it is frequently enough on its own.
The whole process runs on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and the tool works the same whether or not you trust us — because it never has your file to begin with.
Questions people actually ask
How is this different from the main compress tool?
The tool on the PDF Tools page gives you a quality slider, which answers the wrong question when a form is rejecting your file. Here you enter the limit itself and the tool searches for the settings that meet it.
My file is already under 200 KB. Will this make it smaller anyway?
It will return it essentially untouched. The tool stops as soon as the file fits, so a document that is already small enough passes through the lossless pass and comes out the other side with its quality intact.
Can I use a size that is not one of the presets?
Yes. The presets are shortcuts; the number field accepts anything from 5 KB upwards. If your portal asks for 250 KB, type 250.
Does compressing twice make the file smaller still?
Barely, and it costs quality each time. Compression is not cumulative in a useful way — running an already-compressed file through again mostly just degrades it further. Set the target you actually need and do it once.
Is there a limit on file size or number of files?
There is no artificial limit and no signup. The practical ceiling is your device's memory: very large scanned documents on an older phone may run out of room, in which case a laptop will handle it.
When should I choose 200 KB instead of 100 KB?
Whenever the form allows it. Always target the largest size the portal accepts. At 200 KB the compressor has roughly twice the budget, and that is often the difference between a lossless pass that leaves your text sharp and a re-render that turns the pages into images.
How many scanned pages fit in 200 KB?
Two to three pages of greyscale text scan usually fit while staying readable. Colour scans roughly halve that. Past about four pages the tool has to compress hard enough that small print begins to suffer.
Is 200 KB enough if the PDF contains a photograph?
For a single photograph on one page, yes. Photographs are what consume the budget, so a document carrying several full-page images will spend all of 200 KB on those alone and soften them noticeably.