Pre-flight Checker

What the portal's error message never tells you

"Invalid file" is not a reason — it's a shrug. By the time a portal rejects your file, you may be minutes from a deadline, with no way to know which of six possible rules you broke. This checker replaces the shrug with a list: every rule the portal would apply, checked in your browser, with a plain reason next to each result.

What it checks

• KB band — is the file inside your exam's minimum–maximum window? Files below the minimum fail just as hard as files above the maximum.
• Format — JPG where the form demands JPG, not PNG in disguise.
• Aspect ratio — photo 4:5-ish, signature wide-and-short. Wrong ratio is a common silent reject.
• Pixel dimensions — compared against the typical values for your exam.
• Background — the frame edges are sampled to estimate whether your background is actually plain and light, the way most notifications require.
• PDFs — file size against your portal's cap, password encryption (most portals refuse encrypted files), and page count.

Auto-fix: what it will and won't touch

For images, Auto-fix recentres and crops to your exam's aspect ratio, resizes to the typical pixel size, applies white-background cleanup for signatures, and encodes to the middle of the KB band. It does not invent pixels that aren't there: a hopelessly blurry original stays blurry — the checker will tell you that honestly rather than pretending otherwise. For PDFs, size fixes route you to Compress PDF, which handles the document pipeline properly.

What a clean run looks like

For a photo that's ready, the verdict list reads like a checklist of green ticks: size inside the band with the exact number shown, format accepted, ratio within tolerance, dimensions near the typical values, background edges measured as plain white. When something fails, the ❌ row says what the portal would say and what it means — "14.8 KB — allowed band 20–50 KB (below minimum)" instead of a bare rejection. The difference matters: you cannot fix a number you were never shown.

Honesty: checks are not guarantees

This checker applies the compiled rules it can measure locally — bytes, pixels, ratio, format, edge whiteness, encryption, page count. It cannot see everything a portal sees: OCR that compares your photo to a past application, validity dates on a certificate, or a rule unique to one recruitment's instruction page. Treat a green list as "these mechanical checks pass", and keep the live form's instruction page open as the final word. Where they disagree, the form wins — always.

Specs are compiled, not invented

Run it the night before, not the minute before

The real value of a pre-flight check is time. Run it the evening before the deadline: if a fix is needed, you still have a sharp re-shoot, a scanner, or a fresh signature on clean paper available. A check done one minute before submission can only tell you bad news.