How to Reduce PDF Size to 100 KB for Online Forms
Last updated: 25 October 2026
Online forms for jobs, exams and government services often limit uploads to 100 KB or 200 KB. A phone scan of a single page can easily be 2 to 5 MB, so it gets rejected.
Why scanned PDFs are so large
A scanned PDF is mostly pictures: every page is a photo of paper. The photos are what take the space, so shrinking a PDF means making those pictures smaller while the words stay readable.
Reduce a PDF to 100 KB, step by step
- Open the Compress PDF tool and choose your PDF.
- Pick a target size such as 100 KB or 200 KB, or a compression level.
- Compress, then download the smaller PDF.
- Open the result and zoom in to check that names, numbers and signatures are still readable before you upload it.
If it still does not fit
Remove pages the form does not need, such as blank backs of pages, and compress again. For a very small target, pages may be saved as pictures, so always check the text afterwards.
Keep ID documents private
ArwaPDF compresses the file in your browser, so your Aadhaar, PAN or marksheet scan is not uploaded to a server. Once the file is open, the tool even works with the internet switched off.