An application, a grant, an admission, a request for an internship or a flat: three rejections come back again and again on submission portals — the file is too large, only one PDF is accepted although the documents are many, or information that was not requested has to be redacted. Vellum settles all three in the browser, with no account and no quota: compression, splitting under a limit that is measured rather than estimated, merging in the required order, page numbering, redaction that genuinely removes the text from the file produced, and conversion to PDF/A when the submission demands it. The supporting documents never leave the device.
An application, a grant, an admission, a request for an internship or a flat: the file is ready and the platform turns it down. Too heavy, several documents where only one is accepted, or paperwork that says more than it should. These three cases are settled in the browser, with no account and no quota — and your supporting documents go nowhere.
What the portal says, and what to do about it.
Start by compressing: the weight of an application almost always comes from scanned pages, not from the text. If one document is still over, split it into chunks that fit under the limit — the size is measured on the file actually produced, not estimated. And leave a margin: a portal that states 10 MB sometimes rejects a 9.9 MB file once the upload is encoded.
Degree, cover letter, CV, certificates: bring the documents together in the order requested, then number the pages. A panel receiving three hundred applications will not hunt for page 14 in a file with no pagination.
A bank statement for a grant, a payslip for a flat: one line is asked for, thirty are handed over. Redaction genuinely removes the text from the file produced, whereas a black rectangle drawn on top leaves everything readable underneath, with a simple copy and paste.
Online PDF suites send your files to their servers: that computation costs them money, so they ration it — a few files a day, a watermark, an account to create, a subscription at the end of it. Vellum does the computing on your device. There is no server to pay for, so there is nothing to ration: no quota, no account, no watermark. And because your application never goes anywhere, there is nothing to delete afterwards, here or elsewhere.
What you will actually do.
Bring the weight down at the quality level you choose, until it clears the portal’s limit.
When compression is not enough, produce chunks that each stay under the stated ceiling.
Assemble degree, letter and certificates in the order the form requires, as a single document.
Give the whole thing continuous pagination, so a document can be cited by its number.
Remove an account number, an address or an amount from the file produced, rather than covering it.
Convert to the archiving format that some administrations and universities insist on.
Vellum does not fill in your application for you, does not proofread your letter and does not check that every required document is there. It keeps nothing: close the tab without downloading the result and nothing remains. That is the trade-off of local processing — and it is exactly what guarantees that no copy of your bank statement is sitting on somebody else’s server.
Application deadlines are not negotiable. If Vellum saved you from a rejected submission, the most useful thing you can do is tell the people filing the same application. The site is free for everyone and will stay that way: no account to create, no app to install, no paid tier that unlocks a tool.
Vellum — free PDF tools whose processing stays on your device.