PPSC, FPSC, NTS and university job desks still behave like 2014: one attachment, a low megabyte cap, and no preview of what their virus scanner will accept. You get “file too large” after filling 40 fields. This is the recovery path.
Read the advertisement, not a random blog
The PDF in the NTS instructions is the law for that post. Some want:
- CNIC + degrees + experience as one PDF
- Photo as JPG, rest as PDF
- Each document under 200KB
Guessing “merge everything” is how people blow a 2MB ceiling.
Build the packet in this order
- Scan or export each source cleanly (scan or JPG to PDF).
- Crop every page so you are not encoding desk.
- Rotate landscape certificates.
- Organize PDF if a blank snap snuck in.
- Merge PDF only if the form wants one file, in the order the ad listed (CNIC, matric, inter, BA, experience).
- Compress PDF last, starting 0.7. Check size on disk.
Compressing before merge means you JPEG twice. Once is enough.
Stamps, signatures, photos on degrees
Colour seals need quality. If the merged book is 8MB, split the photo-heavy pages, compress those at 0.6, leave typed pages alone, then merge again. A digital-born offer letter should stay vector.
After a failed upload
- Rename to cnic-degrees.pdf — some portals dislike spaces.
- Try Chrome; a few government forms still fight Safari.
- If the cap is 1MB and you are at 1.1MB, crop harder, do not jump to quality 0.2.
Keep originals in a folder. You will reuse this packet for the next advertisement next month. Related: merge PDFs and visa-size compression.