Is 1 MB 1,000 KB or 1,024 KB?

Both are in use, and forms rarely say which. This page starts at 1,024. If the form rejects a file just under that, set the limit to 1000 and run it again.

My PDF has 40 pages. Will it fit in 1 MB?

Possibly, if the pages are mostly text, but small print may suffer. Check the result page by page, and if anything is unreadable, ask whether the form really wants all 40 or only the pages that prove the point.

Compress a PDF to 1 MB

One megabyte is the limit forms tend to set when they expect a whole document rather than a single page: a set of mark sheets, a bank statement, a contract with its annexures. It is roomy enough for ten to twenty scanned pages if they are scanned sensibly, and nowhere near enough if they are not.

Most PDFs that fail it are made of phone photographs, each one several megabytes and several thousand pixels wide, stacked into a file. Those compress dramatically: the pages are redrawn at a resolution that is still sharp on screen and in print, and the size usually falls by a factor of ten or more.

One megabyte here means 1,024 KB. Some forms count a megabyte as 1,000 KB, and a file at 1,010 KB passes one and fails the other, so if yours is close to the line, set the box below to 1000 to be safe.

Set below already, and editable. The numbers on the form you are filling in are the ones that count — application rules change, and this page is not the authority.

1. Choose a PDF

Drop a file here, paste it, or click to choose

Nothing is uploaded. The file stays on your device.

Open from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or a link

The link must be shared with “anyone with the link”. Your browser downloads the file straight from that service; it does not pass through this site.

2. Target size (KB)

Questions

Is 1 MB 1,000 KB or 1,024 KB?: Both are in use, and forms rarely say which. This page starts at 1,024. If the form rejects a file just under that, set the limit to 1000 and run it again.
My PDF has 40 pages. Will it fit in 1 MB?: Possibly, if the pages are mostly text, but small print may suffer. Check the result page by page, and if anything is unreadable, ask whether the form really wants all 40 or only the pages that prove the point.

Other sizes

Need a different number? The PDF compressor takes any size you type. Everything runs on your own device, and nothing is uploaded to this site or anywhere else.