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Compress a PDF to 20KB

20 KB is realistic only for a single page, and in our tests only for a typed page whose fonts take up little room: no scan and no phone photo we tried got that small. Compress can open with 20 KB already chosen. It reads your PDF on your device and, before running anything, estimates whether its lowest picture quality could get there. When a file will not get there — in our tests, that was every scan — it says so and changes nothing.

Updated

Compress a PDF to 20 KB

What can reach 20 KB

  • A single typed page with little or no picture on it, such as an application form filled in on a computer — if its fonts are small. Our one-page typed test form, set in a font every PDF reader already has so none was built into the file, came out under 17 KB with a small photo on it, and got there at the Recommended setting, far above the lowest.
  • A PDF that is under 20 KB already. Compress checks the size first and hands a file like that back exactly as it was, rather than saving a new copy.

What will not get down to 20 KB

  • A scanned page, even on its own. In our tests the lowest setting was estimated to leave a one-page 300 DPI color scan at about 83 KB — four times the limit — so Compress said it could not reach 20 KB and did not run.
  • A phone photo of a page. The smallest a photo from a 12-megapixel phone camera could go in our tests was about 44 KB, more than twice 20 KB.
  • More than one page of scans or photos. Our two-page scan could not get under 20 KB, and every extra page brings a picture of its own.
  • A typed PDF that carries whole fonts inside it. Our three-page text test file was 84 KB with no picture in it, and Compress does not rebuild fonts, so it had nothing to take away.
  • A password-protected PDF, which Compress cannot open.

More on this: Why PDF files get large.

If your PDF will not go down to 20 KB

Check what the 20 KB is for

If the 20 KB limit on your form is for a signature or a photograph rather than a document, look at the file type it asks for as well: where it wants a JPG, a PDF may be refused however small it is.

Upload the one page it wants

20 KB leaves no room for a second page. When the form wants one page out of a longer PDF, take that page out on its own with Extract PDF pages, then compress just that page.

Open Extract PDF pages

Try a black-and-white scan

Where the form accepts one, and your scanning app offers it, scan the page in black and white rather than in color or gray. Compress leaves a page stored that way as the scanner made it, so the size your scanning app saves is close to the size you upload: check it before you send it.

Forms and a 20 KB limit

We looked for upload forms that cap a PDF document at 20 KB and did not find one on any official instructions we could read on September 30, 2026: every 20 KB maximum we read there was for a signature or a thumb impression, uploaded as an image. So this page quotes no form. If yours does ask for a 20 KB PDF, check its instructions for a minimum size as well as the maximum.

A different size

Aiming for a different size? Each of these has its own page.

If you have no set size to hit, open Compress PDF without a target and choose from the sizes it offers for your file.

Compress runs in your browser. Your PDF is not uploaded, there is no account, and no watermark is added to the smaller copy.