Free tool · PDF · nothing uploaded
Compress a CV PDF
Shrink a scanned or photo-heavy CV PDF to get under an ATS, job board or email upload limit.
- Your file never leaves your computer
- No sign-up
- PDF in, Smaller PDF out
1Choose your file
Your file never leaves your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
2Check the settings
3Get your file
About this tool
This free tool makes a CV PDF smaller by re-encoding the photos and scanned images inside it, so it fits under an ATS, job board or email upload limit. If the PDF is mostly text and there is nothing worth removing, it says so and gives you the original back. No login, no upload.
How it works
- 1
Drop the PDF
Usually a scanned CV, a certificate or a pack with photos in it.
- 2
Choose how hard to squeeze
Light, balanced or strong. Stronger means smaller images and a softer look.
- 3
Download
You see the size before and after. The smaller file is only used if it really is smaller.
Why CV PDFs get too big
Almost always it is images: a phone photo of a document saved at full resolution, a scan at 600 dpi, a headshot the size of a poster. Text and vector graphics take very little space. That is why this tool works on the JPEG images inside the file and leaves the text alone.
Common upload limits
Limits vary, but a few numbers come up again and again: many ATS and job boards stop at 2 or 5 MB per file, careers portals built on older systems sometimes allow only 1 MB, and email systems commonly bounce attachments over 10 to 25 MB in total. If a candidate's application keeps failing, the file size is the first thing to check, and a scan is usually the culprit.
Its limits
- A text-only PDF will not shrink. The tool tells you and returns the original.
- Only JPEG images are re-encoded. Images stored as JBIG2, CCITT or JPEG 2000 are skipped.
- Fonts and vector graphics are not touched, so a PDF that is large because of embedded fonts stays large.
Questions recruiters ask
- What size should a CV PDF be?
- Most ATS and job boards accept 2 to 5 MB, and many email systems bounce attachments over 10 to 25 MB. A text CV is usually under 500 KB; a scan is what pushes it over.
- Will compressing make the CV hard to read?
- The text is untouched. Images get softer as you move from light to strong, so check the result and step back to balanced if a scan becomes hard to read.
- Why did my PDF not get smaller?
- It has no JPEG images to re-encode, or they are already compressed more than the setting you chose. The tool returns your original rather than a bigger file.
- Is the file uploaded?
- No. It is compressed in your browser.
Clean, light CVs by default
Formatix outputs every CV as a fresh document in your template, text-based and small, whatever state the original arrived in.
More free tools for recruiters
- Split a CV bookSplit a bulk CV book or multi-candidate PDF into one file per candidate.
- Images to PDFCombine photos or scans of IDs, certificates and right-to-work documents into one PDF.
- Compress an imageShrink candidate headshots and agency logos for templates, job boards and email.
- Merge CV PDFsBuild one candidate submission pack: cover note, CV, assessment and references in one PDF.
Open source: github.com/OpenRecruiterTools/recruiter-tools (MIT). Uses pdf.js, pdf-lib, JSZip and SheetJS, served from formatix.ai.