How to shrink a CV PDF for online job applications
Application portals often reject a CV over 2 MB. Here is how to get under the limit without the text turning blurry — and without uploading your CV anywhere.
Why this happens
A CV exported from Word is usually small, but one that has been scanned or that contains a photo can easily pass 5 MB. Many application portals cap uploads at 2 MB, and some silently fail instead of warning you.
Step by step
- Open the Compress PDF tool and drop your CV in.
- Choose Good quality first — it usually clears 2 MB on its own.
- Check the downloaded file opens and the text is still crisp.
- Only if it is still too large, try Smallest size.
Worth knowing
Compression re-renders the pages, so text that was selectable becomes part of an image. That is fine for a portal that only prints or reads your CV, but if the employer runs automated CV parsing, send the original Word export instead where you can.