How to Prepare Documents for Online Exam Applications in India

Online exam portals reject documents for predictable, preventable reasons. The photo is too large. The signature has a grey background. The marksheet PDF is 3 MB when the portal caps it at 100 KB. The Aadhaar shows all 12 digits when the form wanted a masked copy. None of these take more than a few minutes to fix — if you know what each portal expects before you start filling the form.

What do exam portals actually need for your photo?

Most Indian exam portals — SSC, UPSC, IBPS, Railway — require a JPG photo between 20 KB and 50 KB. Pixel dimensions vary: UPSC and NDA ask for a square image of at least 350×350 px, while Passport Seva wants a portrait 630×810 px. All of them want a plain white background with your face filling most of the frame.

The safest approach: use the exam document package tool, which knows the exact KB and pixel spec for each portal and resizes to it in one step. That way you don't guess whether 48 KB qualifies as “under 50 KB” (it does) or whether a slightly rectangular photo will pass a “square” portal (it won't). For a detailed breakdown of photo specs by exam, see the exam requirements directory.

A few rules apply everywhere, regardless of portal. No glasses. No accessories that obscure the face. Taken recently — UPSC added a 10-day recency rule for CSE 2026. Good, even lighting with no shadows on the face or background. If your photo was taken in a studio more than a few weeks ago, retake it on a plain white wall.

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After

How do you prepare a digital signature for exam forms?

Sign your name on plain white paper with a black or blue pen. Take a clear photo of it in good light, or scan it at 200 DPI. Crop out the blank space around the signature and save as JPG. Most portals want the file between 10 KB and 20 KB. SSC caps it at 20 KB; IBPS and SBI at 20 KB; UPSC accepts up to 100 KB for the signature sheet.

A few portals render your signature on a coloured form background. If your signature has a white JPG background, it will look like a white rectangle sitting on the form. To avoid that, remove the background so only the ink is visible. The transparent signature tool does this in one click. For a full walkthrough of every portal's signature rule, read how to sign an exam application form in India.

If your signature is the right content but the wrong dimensions or KB, use the signature resize tool to hit the exact spec without redoing the whole process. It keeps your aspect ratio intact so the signature doesn't look squashed.

How do you compress certificate PDFs for exam portals?

A scanned marksheet typically comes off a scanner at 1–4 MB. A phone photo of a certificate can be 3–8 MB. Most exam portals cap each document at 50–200 KB. The gap feels huge, but it's very achievable: a greyscale scan of a single-page A4 document compresses to under 100 KB without losing legibility at reading size.

Target ranges by document type:

• 10th and 12th marksheets — aim for 50–80 KB per page. If yours is multi-page, extract only the required page first using the PDF split tool, then compress.
• Degree or diploma certificate — usually one page; 80–120 KB is achievable. If the portal cap is 100 KB, use compress PDF to 100 KB.
• Caste, category, income or domicile certificate — these are typically one page and compress well. Target 50–80 KB.
• Experience letter or NOC — one to two pages; 80–150 KB is usually fine.

For portals with a 50 KB hard cap (SSC and UPSC annexures), use compress PDF to 50 KB. For the broader category of portals that allow 100 KB, the custom PDF compress tool lets you enter any target. The full compression guide at how to compress a PDF explains what to do when a document won't go below a certain size.

Why must you mask your Aadhaar before uploading?

UIDAI recommends sharing a masked Aadhaar — one with only the last 4 digits of the 12-digit number visible — whenever the full number isn't legally required. Most exam portal identity proofs fall into that category. Masking hides the first 8 digits under a black box that is burned into the image pixels and cannot be removed.

The black box must be burned into the image, not just overlaid. Some PDF editors let you add a black rectangle but also let anyone delete it. A proper masking tool converts the mark into pixels so the original digits are gone. Read the full guide on how to mask your Aadhaar before sharing it to see which approaches are secure and which aren't.

After masking, compress the resulting image or PDF to the portal's document limit. Masked Aadhaar is typically a single page and compresses easily to under 100 KB.

Document size limits by portal

Always verify against the official notification for your specific cycle. The exam requirements directory links directly to each portal's current instructions.

The complete document preparation workflow

Preparing all four document types in the right order saves time and avoids having to redo steps. Here is the sequence that works:

• Step 1 - Photo. Take or select a recent photo on a white background. Use the exam package tool to resize it to the exact KB and pixel spec for your target exam.
• Step 2 - Signature. Sign on white paper, photograph it, crop to the signature area. Remove the background if the portal requires transparent PNG. Resize to the KB target.
• Step 3 - Scan certificates. Scan in greyscale at 200 DPI. Colour scanning triples the file size for documents that are black-on-white. If you don't have a scanner, photograph each page flat against a neutral surface in good daylight.
• Step 4 - Extract required pages. If a marksheet PDF has 8 pages but the portal only needs the final results page, use PDF split to extract it before compressing. Fewer pages means a much smaller output.
• Step 5 - Compress each document. Hit the portal's KB cap per document using PDF compress. If you need to combine multiple documents first, merge them, then compress the result. See how to merge PDF files free for that step.
• Step 6 - Mask your Aadhaar. Open the masking tool, cover the first 8 digits, download the masked copy, then compress it if needed.
• Step 7 - Upload. Keep all files in one folder named after the exam and cycle. That way, if the portal times out mid-upload, you can find every file immediately.

Common mistakes and how to fix them