PDFGym
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Compress PDF
to 20 KB

or drop one here
Compression level
Target size
Choose a PDF file first.

20 KB is 20,480 bytes, smaller than a low quality thumbnail. Short text files can land here; scanned pages cannot, at any readable quality. This page runs the attempt in your browser and reports the true floor for your document.

The permit and the prehistoric portal

Helena volunteers for a fishing club whose permit portal predates smartphones: one upload per member, capped at 20 KB. Her day permit, day-permit-helena.pdf, is a single text page generated by the club system, 63 KB of mostly two embedded fonts with a logo.

She runs it here. Font subsetting cuts both fonts to the characters the permit draws, the rebuild drops the generator's leftover objects, and the file lands at 14 KB with every letter pixel identical. The portal accepts it, and the commute to the lake is saved.

Generated paperwork is the only species that thrives at this number: tickets, receipts, permits, plain exports. If your file was ever paper, read on before hoping.

Testing your file against 20 KB

  1. Open the file

    Press Choose a PDF, or drag it into the tab. Tiny files run in a blink, locally.

  2. Keep the 20 KB preset

    This page already aims at 20 KB. For a scan, type a humane number instead and save yourself the lesson.

  3. Press Compress

    All four passes race. On text files the font and rebuild passes usually finish far below the line.

  4. Read the floor

    The result states the size reached beside a preview. If no pass hit 20 KB, you still get the smallest proven file and the real number.

How it works explains the passes. Near neighbours: 50 KB for small scans, 100 KB for realistic planning.

Why scans cannot live here

A readable page image needs tens of kilobytes at minimum; 20,480 bytes cannot carry letterforms, only a suggestion of them. Lowering scan resolution does not rescue the maths, it only spends readability for bytes that still do not fit. No setting and no tool changes this, because the information is not representable in that space.

When a box demands 20 KB and your proof is a scan, reread the instructions: the box almost certainly wants a JPEG or PNG image, not a document. PDF to JPG exports the page as a picture that can fit where no PDF can. Forcing a scan into 20 KB as a PDF produces a file nobody can read, which helps neither you nor the recipient.

Text files play a different game. A font ships thousands of glyphs while the page draws dozens, so subsetting alone often collapses a 200 KB export toward 20 KB. That is the whole trick, and it touches no pixel.

What a miss tells you

Run it anyway and read the number: a floor of 46 KB means the box asks for the nonexistent, and you now know it in seconds rather than after twenty minutes of guessing. The engine always ships the smallest candidate that passed verification, with failures discarded and text guarded at 98%.

Strip images from the source before retrying: a text export with one logo beats the same file with three photos. Regenerate from the word processor without pictures when you can; Size breakdown shows what dominates when you cannot.

Escapes from an impossible box

Ask whether the box takes images; most 20 KB boxes do, and a small JPEG ends the story. Ask the helpdesk whether the cap is per file or per page, since the answer changes the maths completely. And when the document must stay a PDF, propose the proven floor: a legible 46 KB file beats an illegible 20 KB one, and most recipients accept reality when shown it.

Blunt 20 KB answers

Can my scan reach 20 KB?
Realistically, no. Page images need far more bytes than this to stay readable. Export the page as a JPEG if the box allows images.
What files do reach it?
Short text exports, generated tickets and receipts, a signature or logo on white. Single font, no photos, one page.
Why does subsetting matter so much here?
Because on a tiny text file the fonts are most of the weight. Cutting thousands of unused glyphs removes the bulk of the file in one verified step.
What does the run give me on a miss?
The smallest file that passed every check, plus the size it reached. That floor is the honest brief for your next move.
Is anything uploaded?
Nothing. The attempt runs in the tab and the file never leaves the device. No account, no watermark.

More ways out of tiny caps

Export pictures, inspect weight, or split proofs apart. Everything below runs locally and verifies first.

Roomier numbers nearby