When it finds one, the Exact size card shows the real size and the setting used — “images at 150 DPI, quality 60”, say, or “lossless — every pixel identical”. Text is never rasterised, so the CV’s own text stays selectable text; on the free plan each page also gains the small “Made with Bindery” line, which is text too, and Pro exports are clean. If the file cannot get under 2 MB at all, Bindery tells you why and offers to split it into parts. Applying to several places? “Save these settings as my default” keeps the 2 MB limit, so each next file starts fitting straight away, and the Upload-ready tool’s Job application destination starts from the same limit while also checking for passwords, fillable fields, scripts, metadata and pages without text. Nothing is uploaded at any stage.
How it works
- Drop the PDF into Compress — the 2 MB limit is already set and the fit runs on your device
- Read the Exact size card: the measured size and the setting chosen, or why it cannot fit
- Download the fitted file, or press “Split into parts under 2.0 MB” when it will not fit whole
Questions people ask
Will a recruiter notice anything in a CV fitted under 2 MB?
If the lossless cleanup alone brings it under 2 MB, nothing visual changes: Bindery stops there and the card reads “lossless — every pixel identical”. Otherwise only embedded pictures, such as a photo or a logo, are resampled, at the best setting that still fits. Only if no colour setting fits do the last three settings turn those pictures grayscale, and the card then adds “grayscale” to the setting it shows. Text is never rasterised, so the wording stays sharp and selectable. On a free-plan export each page also gains a small “Made with Bindery” line at the foot; Pro removes it.
Does Bindery’s 2 MB mean 2,000,000 bytes or 2,097,152?
Bindery counts in decimal units, so 2 MB means 2,000,000 bytes and the fitted file is at or under that number. A portal that counts a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes allows up to 2,097,152, so the file is under that portal’s size limit too — though size is the only rule this settles. If a platform words its limit differently, or you want a margin, type your own figure in the size box — “1.9 MB” and “1,9 MB” both work — and Bindery fits to that instead.
What if my portfolio or course pack will not go under 2 MB?
The lowest setting is already 50 DPI in grayscale, so if the file is still over 2 MB there, Bindery shows the smallest size reached and whether the pictures or the text, fonts and structure are the weight. The Split into parts button then opens Split with that smallest version and the limit filled in, measuring each part by really writing it; a page that alone exceeds 2 MB becomes its own part, flagged. That helps when the platform takes several files; if it accepts only one, keep just the pages it needs with Extract pages or Delete pages and fit that instead. Finding out costs nothing: the search runs before the job and does not use one of the free plan’s three daily jobs.