Drop PDFs to compress to 200 KBAdd PDFs to compress to 200 KB
Fit a PDF under 200 KB with the gentlest settings that work.
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Your files never leave your deviceAbout this tool
A PDF to 200 KB compressor that keeps the text sharp
Each PDF is made at most 200 KB, with the gentlest settings that fit. A 3.2 MB scanned form came out at 196 KB, its pictures at 150 dpi at quality 83. If it can’t get that small at a readable quality, you get the smallest copy and a note. It stays on your device.
What 200 KB means for a PDF
200 KB is the limit most people mean by a small PDF. a form scanned at 300 dpi (3.2 MB) comes out at 196 KB, its pictures at 150 dpi and quality 83; a phone photo on three A4 pages (5.2 MB) comes out at 193 KB, its pictures at 150 dpi and quality 72; a report with a logo, a chart, a photo and a signature (4.7 MB) comes out at 130 KB, its pictures at 225 dpi and quality 85.
Our scan and phone photo PDF kept 150 and 150 dpi, so documents still read well on a screen and print passably on paper. Single-page forms and a handful of scanned pages fit.
How a PDF reaches 200 KB
Compress PDF tries the gentlest settings first and goes down a step at a time until the file fits: pictures at up to 300 dpi and high quality, then lower. Text and drawings are never touched. For 200 KB our phone photo PDF settled on 150 dpi at quality 72, and the scanned form on 150 dpi at quality 83.
200 KB here means 200,000 bytes, the stricter way to read it, so a file that passes here passes a limit counted in KiB too. The floor is 72 dpi at quality 30: below that pictures stop being readable, so the PDF stays bigger than the limit and says so.
Before you send a 200 KB PDF
A file with many photographic pages has to give up resolution to fit. If you have a choice, keep the pages that matter and leave out the rest, or split the PDF into two files that each fit.
How it works
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Step 1:Add your PDFs
Drop them in or choose them from your device. Each one shows its first page.
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Step 2:Compress to 200 KB
The limit is already set in the panel. Press Compress when you’re ready; nothing changes before that.
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Step 3:Check the size and save
Each PDF shows the size it reached. Save one file, or all of them as a .zip.
Questions, answered
What is the best way to compress a PDF to 200 KB?
Add it and press Compress with the limit set. Our scanned form settled on 150 dpi at quality 83, and the search stops at the gentlest settings that fit, so the quality is as high as the limit allows.
Does 200 KB mean 200,000 bytes or 204,800?
Compress PDF reads KB as 1,000 bytes, the stricter of the two, so a file under it is under both. A PDF that ends at 199 KB on this page will pass a limit of 200 KB however the other side counts.
How small can a photo-heavy PDF get before it looks bad?
Our 12-megapixel photo on three pages fitted 200 KB at 150 dpi at quality 72. Photographs go soft below about 100 dpi, so the search tries every setting above that first and goes down to 72 dpi only when the limit needs it; if even that is too big, you get the smallest copy and a note.
Compress a PDF to a size
These pages open Compress PDF with the size already set.
Text stays sharp.Under 200 KB
Compress by
We use the gentlest settings that fit. If a PDF can’t get that small at a quality you can read, you get the smallest we can make, and it says so.
What changes
Only pictures change: they come down to the size they’re shown at and are saved again. Text, vector drawings, links, bookmarks and form fields stay exactly as they are. The file is repacked too, so even a PDF without pictures can get smaller. Page thumbnails go, and so does the editing data some design apps keep inside a PDF: a PDF saved from Illustrator can’t be opened again as an editable Illustrator file.
PDFs with a password or a digital signature are left as they are: compressing them would remove the protection or break the signature.