A 12 MB scan and a 5 MB upload limit have ended more than one job application, tender or council form on the wrong side of midnight.
Three mistakes people make
Choosing "strong" and ruining a scan
Free compressors often give you a choice of "basic" or "strong" and nothing in between. Strong can turn a scanned certificate into a smudge nobody can read, which fails the upload for a different reason.
Compressing the same file twice
Running a PDF through a compressor a second time throws away more of what is left. Go back to the original and compress once, to the size you actually need.
Guessing the portal's limit
"Under 5 MB" and "as small as possible" are not the same target, and aiming for the wrong one either wastes time or ruins a document you did not need to shrink that far.
The fix: tell it the size, not a preset
The Jobbit PDF compressor asks what the file is for and how small it needs to be, under 1, 2, 5 or 10 MB, then compresses to that target and checks a page back before handing it over. There is no daily task limit, the file goes into your own workspace, and you get the size before and after so you know it worked. The full method covers scanned documents in more detail.
How the free options compare
| What you need | Free PDF sites | Jobbit |
|---|---|---|
| A named target size | Smallpdf offers presets, not a number | You say "under 2 MB" and it aims for that |
| No daily limit | Smallpdf allows two tasks a day | No task cap on the free plan's credits |
| A batch of files | iLovePDF caps free file size and batches | A folder of files in one message |
A home carer's DBS check
A home carer needs her DBS certificate under 2 MB for an agency's online form. She signs up to Jobbit, attaches the scan and says what it is for, and gets it back small enough to upload with the signature still legible, instead of guessing at a "medium" setting and hoping.
When to pay instead
If you need a legally evidenced e-signature with an audit trail, that is Adobe Acrobat or DocuSign territory, not a compressor. For the everyday job of getting a scan or a certificate under a size limit, a free tool that lets you name the target does the job.
