How to reduce a PDF to under 2 MB

Upload forms love round limits: 2 MB on many government portals, 5 MB for job applications, 10–25 MB for email. A scanned document blows past those instantly because every page is a full-resolution photo.

What makes a PDF big

• Scans and photos. A page scanned at 600 dpi is 5–10 MB on its own. Text-only PDFs exported from Word are tiny — 50–200 KB — and cannot be compressed much further.
• Embedded fonts and images at print resolution when screen resolution would do.
• Extra pages — cover sheets, blank backs of double-sided scans.

Shrink it

1. Open Compress PDF and drop the file.
2. Move the quality slider down to about 60% for a scan. Pages are re-encoded as JPEG at that quality, which typically takes a 12 MB scan to 1–2 MB.
3. Check the result on screen; text stays readable well below 50%.

If the tool returns the original unchanged, the PDF is already text-only and small; the limit is being hit by something else — usually attachments or an oversized page count.

Still over the limit?

• Delete pages you do not need (blank sides, instructions) with Delete PDF pages.
• Split a long document and send it in parts.
• For a single page, PDF to JPG at 1× produces a compact image that most portals accept as an alternative.

Everything above runs in your browser, so the document — often an ID, a contract or a tax form — never leaves your device.