Compress PDF to 1 MB

A 1 MB limit is generous compared with 100 or 200 KB, yet phone scans and scanner exports regularly land at 5, 10 or 20 MB. That is because scanning apps often save every page at full camera resolution. Compressing to 1 MB usually brings these files down to a reasonable size with little visible loss, which is why this preset suits documents where clarity matters most. Use it whenever the form allows 1 MB, rather than squeezing harder than necessary.

Why scanned PDFs get so big

A modern phone camera captures millions of pixels per photo. When a scanning app wraps each photo into a PDF page without resizing, a ten-page document can easily pass 10 MB. Very little of that detail is needed to read a page on screen. This tool redraws each page at a sensible resolution and stores it as a JPEG, which removes most of that excess.

How the 1 MB target is reached

Here 1 MB means 1000 KB, or 1,000,000 bytes. The compressor aims for under 940,000 bytes, leaving a 6% margin for portals that count in 1024-byte units. It renders pages with PDF.js and rebuilds them with pdf-lib, trying the highest setting first (scale 1.2 at 78% JPEG quality). With a 1 MB budget, many documents fit on the first or second attempt, so pages stay sharp.

The result shows original size, output size and the difference. If even the smallest setting is still too big, you get that smallest file with an honest note that the target was missed.

Good uses and trade-offs

The trade-off is the same for every Dokurapi PDF preset: pages become images, so text selection, search, links, form fields and digital signatures are lost. The original file stays as it was.

Working with very large files

Because all work happens in the browser, a big PDF with many pages uses your device's memory and can take a while. Close other heavy tabs, keep this tab in front, and use Cancel if it is taking too long. If you are assembling a bundle, merge the PDFs first, compress once, and then confirm the final number with check PDF size.

Nothing is uploaded, no account is needed, and the site sets no daily limit. As always, the receiving portal's current instruction decides what is accepted.