Compress a PDF to 200 KB
Some portals only accept PDFs under 200 KB. Add your file and the tool tries gentle settings first, then stronger ones, until it fits or tells you why it can't.
How to get a PDF under 200 KB
- 1
Choose the PDF
It opens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
- 2
Click Compress PDF
The 200 KB target is already chosen. For scanned documents, tick "Allow pages as images" if you don't need to select the text.
- 3
Check and download
You see the final size and whether it made it under 200 KB, then download.
What usually fits in 200 KB
Typed documents, such as a letter or a CV saved from Word, are often already under 200 KB, because text takes very little space. Scans and photographed pages are what make PDFs big: each page is a picture.
The tool starts with a lossless repack, then shrinks the pictures inside the PDF in steps while keeping the text as real text. It stops at the first result under 200 KB, so quality is only given up when it has to be.
When a scanned PDF still won't fit
A multi-page scan may not reach 200 KB while staying a normal PDF. Ticking "Allow pages as images" lets the tool redraw each page as a lighter picture, which usually gets scans much smaller. The trade-off is that text can no longer be selected or searched.
If it still doesn't fit, the honest answer is that the document has too many pages for the limit. Split it with Split PDF and upload the parts, or check whether the portal accepts an image of each page instead.
Your files never leave your device
Your file is compressed on your own device, so it's never uploaded.
Many online PDF sites send your file to their servers, work on it there, and keep a copy for a while. PilotPDF does the work in your browser instead. The page loads the code it needs, and your file is opened and processed on your own device. The file itself is never sent to us, so there is no copy on our side to store, leak or delete.
Read more about how this works in our privacy-by-design explainer.