workingmom Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 So I did a pretty thorough transcript on excel, printed signed and then scanned and saved as a pdf. But its reading as 2MB and the college application site wants it 1MB? Any suggestions? I was hoping to add the transcript and course descriptions (which I did in word) as a single document but the size is an issue. This may be an issue for common app (I haven't gotten there yet, was trying to get his early descision non common app one done) Suggestions? Feel free to PM me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 Try scanning it at a lower resolution if possible. Do you really need to sign it though, if you are submitting electronically? Maybe you can save your excel file as a PDF instead and by-pass that? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 If you don't mind using smallpdf.com you can compress it through them. It's free and a simple drag and drop interface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 The problem is the scanning turned your whole document into high resolution images. Sign a blank sheet of paper, scan that, trim and import that as one image into your transcript. Export your word doc as PDF. If that doesn't fix it, use smallpdf as in above post. (But you'll need a document of for stated text, not a document of scanned images for good results.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 Oh I somehow missed the part about scanning and saving as PDF. Like Janet says just save directly to PDF from Excel (File/ Save As/ then choose PDF from the Save As Type drop down menu). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 Uploading everything on Saturday. Yikes! Hoping it goes smoothly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 (edited) Just save it into pdf directly from Excel without scanning. If it is still too big, you are probably using non standard fonts that need to be specifically embedded within the file; switching to one of the seven Adobe standard fonts will avoid this. Edited October 10, 2017 by regentrude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
workingmom Posted October 10, 2017 Author Share Posted October 10, 2017 Your're right if I just save the excel as a pdf with no signature its the correct size. So are you guys not signing the transcript on the bottom where you would put school administrator etc? I'll see if I can copy and paste the signature otherwise I guess just write "electronically signed" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
workingmom Posted October 10, 2017 Author Share Posted October 10, 2017 Also does anyone know how to combine pdfs into one document? The transcript is vertically aligned and the course descriptions are landscape view. When I try to combine them it keeps changing the other view to the first to make them all the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 Your're right if I just save the excel as a pdf with no signature its the correct size. So are you guys not signing the transcript on the bottom where you would put school administrator etc? I'll see if I can copy and paste the signature otherwise I guess just write "electronically signed" I just typed my name. None of the colleges my kids applied to had any issue with that. Really, as soon as it is in electronic form, a scanned handwritten signature is not any more "official" than a typed one. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 Also does anyone know how to combine pdfs into one document? The transcript is vertically aligned and the course descriptions are landscape view. When I try to combine them it keeps changing the other view to the first to make them all the same. I uploaded the course descriptions as a second transcript. I wanted to keep the actual transcript as a separate file. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 It's normal for a PDF document to have all pages oriented the same way. Many schools read apps all online, so you can't have sideways pages in the middle of the document. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvonne Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 I uploaded the course descriptions as a second transcript. I wanted to keep the actual transcript as a separate file. Regentrude--just curious... Why did you want the actual transcript as a separate file. I was thinking of uploading both transcript (as first page) and course descriptions as a single, multi-page document. The transcript would be the first page, so it would still be "front & center," and the course descriptions would all follow so the reader wouldn't have to go looking for a second document. Now I'm wondering if there's a downside to doing it like that? (Probably just personal preference, but thought I'd ask.) Thank you! And thank you, again, for taking the time to field all these questions for those of us new to the whole college app process! yvonne 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 (edited) Regentrude--just curious... Why did you want the actual transcript as a separate file. I was thinking of uploading both transcript (as first page) and course descriptions as a single, multi-page document. The transcript would be the first page, so it would still be "front & center," and the course descriptions would all follow so the reader wouldn't have to go looking for a second document. Now I'm wondering if there's a downside to doing it like that? (Probably just personal preference, but thought I'd ask.) Thank you! And thank you, again, for taking the time to field all these questions for those of us new to the whole college app process! yvonne I don't think it matters at all. In the Common App, it all becomes one thing, because the CA creates one huge pdf of the entire school portion of the application. So, they will see the school report and school profile, followed by the counselor letter, followed by the transcript, followed by the course descriptions, all in that one huge file. DD's had 15 pages and was 3.8 Megabytes. I just felt that the transcript is a separate document from the course descriptions and thus kept them as separate files. In the mid-year and final updates, you will only upload the updated transcript, not new course descriptions. Edited October 10, 2017 by regentrude 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvonne Posted October 10, 2017 Share Posted October 10, 2017 Thanks, Regentrude! Didn't know if I was missing something that would come back to bite me. I didn't realize that the CommApp created one huge pdf of the school portion. Sounds like everything will be kept together no matter where I upload the course descriptions. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corraleno Posted October 11, 2017 Share Posted October 11, 2017 Your're right if I just save the excel as a pdf with no signature its the correct size. So are you guys not signing the transcript on the bottom where you would put school administrator etc? I'll see if I can copy and paste the signature otherwise I guess just write "electronically signed" I keep several scanned signatures on file on my laptop anyway, so I just added one of those to the document before saving it as a PDF. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
workingmom Posted October 16, 2017 Author Share Posted October 16, 2017 So I scanned just the signature and copy/pasted to the transcript and it worked great and fit the size requirement Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkT Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 FYI Libre Office allows direct save as PDF. It can open Excel files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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