Reduce Manuscript and Supplementary Figure PDF Sizes for Journal Submission
Journal submission portals routinely cap manuscript uploads at 10–20MB — a limit that papers with high-resolution microscopy images, multi-panel figures, or dense supplementary data files exceed without the author realizing it until the submission system rejects the upload. Deliteful compresses research PDFs to portal-compliant sizes while keeping figures legible for peer review.
Researchers submitting to journals via Editorial Manager, ScholarOne, or journal-specific portals encounter size limits that feel arbitrary until an 8MB limit rejects a manuscript with four high-resolution Western blot panels. Supplementary files are the more common problem: a supplementary data PDF with 30 full-page figures exported at 600 DPI for print review can reach 80–100MB. Portals impose per-file and total submission size caps that these files routinely breach. Rebuilding the PDF from LaTeX or resampling figures in ImageJ takes time that the submission deadline may not allow.
Deliteful compresses the exported manuscript or supplementary PDF directly. Balanced mode preserves figure legibility at the zoom levels reviewers use — typically 100–150% in a PDF viewer — while significantly reducing file size. High Quality mode is appropriate when figure detail is scientifically significant and must be preserved as closely as possible for peer review. Text, equations, and vector plot elements are unaffected at all compression levels.
How it works
- 1
Create a free Deliteful account
Sign in with Google in 3 clicks — no credit card required.
- 2
Upload the manuscript or supplementary PDF
Select the exported research PDF that is exceeding your journal portal's file size limit.
- 3
Choose Balanced or High Quality mode
Use Balanced for most manuscripts or High Quality when figure detail — such as histology or gel images — is central to the scientific argument.
- 4
Download and submit to the portal
Your compressed PDF is ready to upload to Editorial Manager, ScholarOne, or your journal's submission system.
Frequently asked questions
- Will compressing my manuscript figures make them too low-resolution for peer reviewers to evaluate?
- Balanced mode recompresses figures to screen-appropriate quality, which is legible and evaluable at standard PDF viewer zoom levels (100–150%). If your figures contain fine structural detail — histology slides, electron microscopy, gel bands — use High Quality mode to preserve more of the original image data for reviewer assessment.
- My journal's supplementary file limit is 10MB and my supplementary PDF is 90MB — can Deliteful help?
- Maximum compression mode will produce the smallest possible output. A 90MB supplementary PDF of figure panels typically compresses to 8–20MB on Maximum, depending on figure content and resolution. If the result still exceeds the limit, splitting supplementary figures into multiple smaller PDFs and compressing each is the most reliable approach.
- Will compression affect LaTeX-rendered equations or vector plot elements in my figures?
- No. Text and vector content — including LaTeX-rendered math, vector plots from matplotlib or R, and scalable figure labels — are preserved perfectly at all compression levels. Only raster image elements such as photographs, microscopy images, and embedded bitmaps are recompressed.
- Can I compress a PDF that was exported directly from LaTeX?
- Yes. LaTeX-compiled PDFs are standard PDF files and compress normally. Upload the compiled PDF output and configure compression as needed. The resulting file will upload to your journal portal like any other PDF.
Sign up free with Google and compress your manuscript or supplementary PDF before your journal submission portal rejects the upload.