I have a scanned contract that needs to go under 5MB for the upload portal but every time I compress it the text gets blurry. Is there a way to shrink the file without that happening?
I agree, that size limit is annoying. Because a scan is basically one image, compression just smears the pixels. Honestly, I would try rescanning the paper original as black and white at 300 dpi using the scanner software. That keeps text sharp while reducing the size a lot. If you only have the PDF, test a copy by lowering color depth instead of compressing.
Is the scan in color? Grayscale alone can half the size with no visible loss.
- Resave at 150 to 200 dpi, that’s plenty for text.
- Convert to grayscale, or black and white if nothing needs color.
- Compress with PDF24 and set the dpi manually.
Blurry text is usually jpeg artifacts, not the size cut itself.
Try converting the scans to greyscale and downsampling to around 200 dpi, or use black-and-white CCITT compression if it’s just printed text. Avoid repeatedly compressing the same PDF, as that’s what usually makes the writing fuzzy.
If the contract is scanned, try rescanning in grayscale at 200 to 300 dpi rather than lowering quality afterward. That usually keeps small text readable while reducing the size a lot. Avoid converting it to a low-resolution color image, because color scans make files larger and blurry compression is hard to recover from.
@cameron2002 I totaly agree that dropping it to grayscale helps so much! When I send vendor schedules, I scan them directly in black and white at 200 dpi to keep the file nice and small. Do you usually scan from a phone or a real scanner?
@guitar_mouse I agree, rescanning is the fix when you still have the paper. Greyscale at 200 to 300 dpi keeps the small print readable, and if your scanner only does colour, just convert to greyscale afterwards in the scanner software or PDF24. Keep a backup of the original file before you change anything.