# Help! How to get my files under 5mb?!



## Katiegirl81 (Oct 18, 2018)

Hi everyone...
I slaved away for weeks putting together a photo journal of our relationship for my husband's partner visa application, filled with screenshots of messages, emails, photos, etc...only to find out it's waaaaay to big for the 5mb file size limit. Even my stat dec's signed by friends, and saved as pdf's are too big!

How did other's get around this? Did you upload each scanned page separately as a jpeg image? (Seems like this would be irritating and time-consuming for the case officer?!) Or do you use an online file compressor tool? I just used an online tool and managed to get a 30mb pdf file down to 1.5mb. I uploaded it, but now I'm worried they won't be able to open it, as it says on their website they can't open compressed files. Is that what they're talking about, or do they mean when I "zip" files to try and reduce the size?

Please help, someone! Such a stressful process!


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## konji__ (Nov 27, 2017)

Katiegirl81 said:


> Hi everyone...
> I slaved away for weeks putting together a photo journal of our relationship for my husband's partner visa application, filled with screenshots of messages, emails, photos, etc...only to find out it's waaaaay to big for the 5mb file size limit. Even my stat dec's signed by friends, and saved as pdf's are too big!
> 
> How did other's get around this? Did you upload each scanned page separately as a jpeg image? (Seems like this would be irritating and time-consuming for the case officer?!) Or do you use an online file compressor tool? I just used an online tool and managed to get a 30mb pdf file down to 1.5mb. I uploaded it, but now I'm worried they won't be able to open it, as it says on their website they can't open compressed files. Is that what they're talking about, or do they mean when I "zip" files to try and reduce the size?
> ...


Putting everything in one file is not a good idea and you are correct, the file would be too large.
I separated mine into categories, dates, or events and upload each of them. Have a like a total of 50 files, most are PDFs (photos were thrown into a word document and converted to PDF).
And yes, when they say compressed files, it's .zip .rar etc... 
.pdf is still fine... you can test this yourself by opening it as .pdf, if it opens and you can view the content, then should be fine for the department.


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## konji__ (Nov 27, 2017)

also curious... how many pages are your stat decs? 
i find it hard to believe it would be more than 5mb...


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## Katiegirl81 (Oct 18, 2018)

Thanks. That's reassuring. Yes, they're still pdf files and still can be opened in Adobe, so hopefully they're ok. Discovered that if I just convert a word doc to pdf, the file size is reasonable, but if I scan a document as a pdf, the file size is exorbitant, so think I need to readjust the settings...

The stat decs were just the normal Form 888 ones - 4-ish pages (?), plus copy of ID document attached.


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## konji__ (Nov 27, 2017)

yeah, you might want to take a look at the settings... i have about the same number of scanned pages to .pdf, wasn't more than 2mb...
as long as you can open it after all the compression and you can see the documents clearly, should be no problem...


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## LadyRogueRayne (Aug 17, 2015)

I think your scan settings need to be looked at, as my 888s weren't very big at all when I scanned them (1.6kb). I compressed my larger documents with no issues using an online pdf compressor. However, you can't use zip files. Just make sure you check after you've compressed the pdf to ensure it's still clear to read and easy to see the pics. Also, if you save pictures and such as smaller files, this reduces the file size. I split my pictures into 3 files: one for our vacation/travel, one for our wedding and one for family/friend/get-together pictures. I did our travel (tickets, itinerary, hotels) in one pdf. Did another pdf for all the utilities. Another for bank statements. Another for received mail, both joint and individual, etc. They are all separate pdfs; however, all the information for that particular set is in the one file (if that makes sense).

Additionally, when I uploaded each file, I checked the file first before submitting, to double check that I uploaded the correct file and that it would open. You can do this by clicking on the file after uploading, but before completely submitting the file.


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## Skybluebrewer (Jan 15, 2016)

Your scanner DPI must be set way too high. Experiment with it a bit. Go as low as you need to still get a clear legible scan.

https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/trav...and-appeals/guidelines-on-attaching-documents


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## CCMS (Oct 10, 2013)

There are all sort of ways to reduce the size of a PDF file. Lots of apps out there, both free and paid. 

For some of the evidence, provide separate files ( photos, emails, FB screenshots) father’s than multi page combined files.

Whatever you do, do not compress your evidence into zip. files.


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## Eh? (Aug 5, 2017)

We had a similar issue with ours, mostly in the financial aspects of the relationship evidence and the social aspects evidence. 

Rather than have all of our financial evidence in one massive PDF, we broke it down into separate categories. For example, we wrote a brief statement detailing what was in the financial aspects of the relationship evidence and why we were breaking down - we also mentioned something about our personal finances in said statement. 

We made one PDF of all our rent payments to our landlord and another with purchases made from our joint account. They were under 5MB and clear scans.


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## Katiegirl81 (Oct 18, 2018)

Thanks for your help everyone! Think I figured out the problem - the scanner settings were set to colour, instead of black and white - that seems to have fixed the problem.

Now I'm busy organising my large photo diary into micro-categories  Fun and games, this visa process!


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## konji__ (Nov 27, 2017)

Katiegirl81 said:


> Thanks for your help everyone! Think I figured out the problem - the scanner settings were set to colour, instead of black and white - that seems to have fixed the problem.
> 
> Now I'm busy organising my large photo diary into micro-categories  Fun and games, this visa process!


i dont think colour would be an issue... all my scans are coloured and still not over 5mb...
should play around with the settings and see...


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## Skybluebrewer (Jan 15, 2016)

Katiegirl81 said:


> Thanks for your help everyone! Think I figured out the problem - the scanner settings were set to colour, instead of black and white - that seems to have fixed the problem.
> 
> Now I'm busy organising my large photo diary into micro-categories  Fun and games, this visa process!


Except you need to do color scans, not black and white.

Chances are you have the setting for scanning photos instead of documents or similar. Just go to advance settings and look for DPI. It'll prob be in the thousands if it's taking up that much space for just a few pages like a F888.


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## Ejona (Jul 4, 2015)

konji__ said:


> Putting everything in one file is not a good idea and you are correct, the file would be too large.
> I separated mine into categories, dates, or events and upload each of them. Have a like a total of 50 files, most are PDFs (photos were thrown into a word document and converted to PDF).
> And yes, when they say compressed files, it's .zip .rar etc...
> .pdf is still fine... you can test this yourself by opening it as .pdf, if it opens and you can view the content, then should be fine for the department.


I threw my photos into a word document, then converted it into PDF. It ended up being 75 MG!!! If I compress it it will most likely be blurry and loose quality .


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## konji__ (Nov 27, 2017)

Ejona said:


> I threw my photos into a word document, then converted it into PDF. It ended up being 75 MG!!! If I compress it it will most likely be blurry and loose quality .


I hope you didn't throw them all in one word doc. 
I separated them and submitted them separately. As long as you can clearly see who's in the photo, should be no problem.


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## Eh? (Aug 5, 2017)

konji__ said:


> I hope you didn't throw them all in one word doc.
> I separated them and submitted them separately. As long as you can clearly see who's in the photo, should be no problem.


We added heaps of photos but didn't just dump them into a single PDF file. We put them in the relevant evidence groups. For example, in social aspects - we listed the concerts we went to, had an image of the tickets and then a picture of two together at the concert. Some social events had two or three different events on a single page, including pictures and ours was clear and under 5mb.


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## Skybluebrewer (Jan 15, 2016)

Another option is just to take photos of your documents and put them in Word and save as a PDF. File size can be decreased by cropping the photos to show just what you need and reducing their actual size by dragging corners in Word to make them smaller.

Combining like evidence is a tool to save from wasting upload space and organizing the application. So if you had 20-30 photos, you'd put them into a single pdf instead of uploading individually, or do like Eh? said above and put the photos in relevant files to support the evidence. You wouldn't put everything you had into one file though.

We generally broke the files down as
Household bills (gas, electricity, water)
Leases
Photos 
Holidays (receipts, flights, etc)
Social media
Proof of address (letters addressed to both of us, official post sent to us, etc)
Financial (proof of joint bank accounts, major purchases, etc)
Joint insurance (vehicles, health, contents)
And so on.

How you choose to combine files is your choice, but definitely don't try to put it all into one file.


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## Eh? (Aug 5, 2017)

Skybluebrewer said:


> Another option is just to take photos of your documents and put them in Word and save as a PDF. File size can be decreased by cropping the photos to show just what you need and reducing their actual size by dragging corners in Word to make them smaller.
> 
> Combining like evidence is a tool to save from wasting upload space and organizing the application. So if you had 20-30 photos, you'd put them into a single pdf instead of uploading individually, or do like Eh? said above and put the photos in relevant files to support the evidence. You wouldn't put everything you had into one file though.
> 
> ...


Sounds like we had the same approach, Sky. 

Using word to create the PDF's was a real time saver. You could have photos, screen shots of evidence and explanations all in one. It saved us a lot of time, effort, grief and most important, stress.


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## Ejona (Jul 4, 2015)

konji__ said:


> I hope you didn't throw them all in one word doc.
> I separated them and submitted them separately. As long as you can clearly see who's in the photo, should be no problem.


I did throw them all into one word doc, that was my bad. I will go back to it tonight and divide it into separate file i.e pictures of us alone, pictures with family and friends etc.


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## GoViet (Jul 12, 2018)

I had a similar issue with 10 - 20 photos for each document so I used paint to reduce the size of the photos from 1-3 mb down to 150 KB this reduced the document size significantly. You need to reduce the photo size before creating the document, as for some reason the document is still to large if you take the photos out reduce them and put them back in.


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## Yasirrafiq786 (Aug 2, 2018)

GoViet said:


> I had a similar issue with 10 - 20 photos for each document so I used paint to reduce the size of the photos from 1-3 mb down to 150 KB this reduced the document size significantly. You need to reduce the photo size before creating the document, as for some reason the document is still to large if you take the photos out reduce them and put them back in.


 compressed files mean *.zip, *.rar files...if u compress a file to reduce size that is ok....do this thing...open each jpeg file in paint and click resize option, in percentage enter like 50 or 45..save the file...do with each file and then create pdf ..It will be smaller...there are free online tools where you can batch process and resize the files at the same time..Google them....also in paint give caption to each picture...make a text box and write it...making one file would be easier for CO


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