The search leans towards quality rather than the smallest number. If the setting that fits lands below 400 KB — more than a fifth of the limit left unused — Bindery measures one setting halfway to the next better rung and takes it when it still fits. Grayscale appears only on the last three rungs, when colour genuinely cannot fit, and the result card says so alongside the DPI and quality used. Text is never rasterised, and scanned pages become a sharp text mask over a low-resolution background, keeping any OCR layer. If even the lowest setting stays above 500 KB, as a long colour scan can, Bindery says why and offers to split it into parts that fit. On the free plan the “Made with Bindery” line is added before the final check, and the search re-runs with less room if it tips the file over.
How it works
- Drop the PDF — Compress opens with 500 KB already in the size box
- Bindery tries lossless cleanup, then real image settings on your device, and picks the best one at or under 500 KB
- Download the result, or choose “Split into parts under 500 KB” if the file cannot fit whole
Questions people ask
How many scanned pages fit under 500 KB?
There is no reliable page count — colour, photographs and scanner settings move it a lot either way. Bindery doesn’t lean on a rule of thumb: it writes your file at real settings and reports the size it actually reached. If the setting it lands on ends in “grayscale”, the scan is near the most 500 KB can hold, so check signatures and small print at 200% zoom before you submit it.
Is 500 KB counted as 500,000 or 512,000 bytes?
Bindery counts a kilobyte as 1,000 bytes, so the target is 500,000. Some forms count 1,024 bytes to the kilobyte and would allow up to 512,000, so a file the done screen reports as under your limit is at most 500,000 bytes — within the limit whichever way the form counts. That final size is measured on the file you actually download, after the free-plan line is added.
My scan is too long for 500 KB — what are my options?
When even the lowest setting stays over the limit, Bindery shows the smallest size the file reaches and whether the pictures or the text, fonts and structure are to blame. Split into parts under 500 KB then opens Split with that smallest version and the limit already set; Split writes each part to measure it, and a page that is over 500 KB on its own still becomes a separate part, flagged. If the form wants a single file, send only the pages it asks for — Extract pages pulls them out and leaves your original untouched.