1. Are these the pages you need?
Compare what the recipient asks for with the actual pages in the PDF. If there is a duplicate cover, blank pages or an appendix from an older version, you can extract only the pages you need into a new PDF. This creates a separate file rather than deleting anything from the original.
Removing pages does not reduce file size by a fixed proportion. If several pages share image or font resources, or resources are written again into the new PDF, the result may differ from what you expect. Judge by the actual size of the resulting file.
2. Image size and purpose
Scanned and photo pages tend to produce larger files than text-heavy pages. If you are creating a PDF from images, consider adjusting size and quality at the original image stage rather than trying to shrink the PDF afterwards.
Screen sharing and printing need different levels of sharpness. For material with small text or stamps, check it at the size it will actually be used. No particular quality setting or pixel count is guaranteed to suit every recipient.
3. Is converting the PDF to JPG acceptable?
PDF→JPG draws each page as an image. The JPG does not keep text search or selection, nor the zoom quality of vector graphics. Combining the JPGs back into a PDF will not turn them back into the original text document.
Converting to images can even make files larger, and downloading a ZIP changes the submission format too. First check whether the recipient requires a PDF and whether text search or signature verification is needed. Do not confuse this process with dedicated PDF compression.
Technical source: PDF.js examples that render pages to a canvas · Checked 2026-10-11
4. Size limits and keeping the original
Free CVT does not have a dedicated PDF compressor that recompresses only the images inside an existing PDF. It offers merging and page extraction, PDF→JPG, image compression and resizing, and image→PDF. PDFs larger than 50MB are not processed.
Even if the recipient requires 10MB or less, seeing ‘done’ in the tool does not mean the requirement is met. Check the size and format of the downloaded file and compare it with the original to make sure no needed information is missing.
The next step for your situation
If unneeded pages are the problem, use Split PDF to extract the range you need. If you are making a new PDF from images, compress or resize the images first. If you must reduce only the size of an existing PDF while keeping its signatures and quality, you need the export options of the program that created the PDF or a separate tool suited to that purpose.
Keep the original and check the content, size and format of the result.