Most job portals want one file, not three, and many quietly reject anything over a few megabytes or anything an applicant tracking system cannot parse. A resume that looks perfect on your screen can still fail silently the moment it is a picture of text rather than real text, or the moment it tips past a size limit the form never bothered to explain. This workflow walks you through cleaning up your wording, combining your documents in the right order, shrinking the result, and adding a signature if the role asks for one. Everything runs in your browser, so your resume and personal details never leave your computer.

Get clean, selectable text into your PDF first

Applicant tracking systems read text, not pictures of text, so start from a real document rather than a screenshot or a photo. If your resume lives in Word, use the Word to PDF tool to convert it while keeping the words selectable and the layout intact. If you only have an old PDF and want to fix the wording, run it through the PDF to Word tool first, edit it there, then convert it back. This keeps your final file both editable and machine-readable.

Confirm the text is actually selectable

Open the converted file in the Viewer and try to highlight a sentence with your cursor. If the text highlights, an ATS can read it; if it selects as one big image block, the file is really a scan and the parser will see nothing. In that case, run it through the OCR tool to add a searchable text layer before you go any further. This one check prevents the single most common silent rejection.

Combine your documents in reading order

Use the Merge tool to join your files into one PDF, and add them in the order a recruiter expects: cover letter first, then resume, then any portfolio pages. Drag the files into sequence before you merge so nothing lands out of place. Keeping everything in a single document means no attachment gets separated or overlooked, and the reviewer sees your strongest material immediately.

Compress the bundle to fit the upload limit

Portfolio images and design-heavy resumes can push a file well past a 2 MB or 5 MB cap. Run the merged PDF through the Compress tool and pick a quality level that trims the size without turning your layout soft or muddy. Check the reported file size right after compressing, and only step the quality down again if you are still over the limit. A moderate setting is usually enough and keeps your text crisp.

Add a visible signature if the role requires one

Some applications, especially in the public sector or for formal offers, ask for a signed cover letter. Use the Sign tool to place a visible image signature exactly where it belongs on the page. Keep in mind this is a drawn or uploaded signature image rather than a cryptographic one, so use it only where a visual signature is accepted. For most job applications that is perfectly fine.

Do a final read-through before you submit

Open the finished PDF one last time in the Viewer and scroll through every page. Confirm the order is right, nothing was cut off during compression, and your name, email, and phone number on page one are correct. Look closely at any portfolio images to be sure they still read clearly after compression. A two-minute review here is far cheaper than a missed callback.

Save a reusable master version

Keep this finished file as a master copy so future applications start from a known-good document instead of a blank page. When a new role comes up, you can swap in a tailored cover-letter page and re-merge rather than rebuilding everything. Name the file clearly with your own name and the word resume so a recruiter downloading it can find it later.

Treat that master copy as your baseline and only tweak the cover-letter page for each new application, so you are not reassembling the whole bundle every time. If a portal still complains about size, go back to the Compress tool and lower the quality one more notch before touching anything else, since compression almost always solves the problem on its own.