The CE-File portal rejects your bundle at 4:55pm because the PDF was generated with a watermark, the pages aren't numbered consecutively, and there's a stray landscape page in the middle. You have five minutes.
Almost every court filing failure is one of three problems: format, pagination, or signatures. Get those three right and the portal stops being a daily enemy.
Convert cleanly from Word
Most court documents start life in Word. Use Word to PDF rather than printing to PDF from inside Word, which sometimes embeds tracked changes or comments as annotations. Flatten the output before filing so review comments and editor history can't be extracted by the other side.
Handle the awkward pages
Landscape exhibits, foldout plans, scanned attachments — these are where bundles fall apart. Rotate PDF pages any sideways scans into upright orientation. If a page is genuinely a landscape exhibit (a spreadsheet, a plan), most courts accept it provided it's the right way up when read sideways. Don't mix orientations within a single document section unless you have to.
Pagination and indexing
Number every page consecutively across the whole bundle. Build the index last, when ordering is final — drafting the index first guarantees you'll miss a renumber. Use reorder PDF pages to fix sequence problems rather than re-exporting from Word, which often re-paginates and changes line breaks.
Signatures that survive the portal
Many court portals strip out interactive form fields and re-flatten files on upload. If you've used sign PDF, confirm the signature is part of the page image after export, not a live field. The simplest test: open the filed file in a fresh reader and check the signature is still visible. If it's gone, re-flatten and re-upload.
Size limits and compression
Most portals cap individual files between 20MB and 50MB. If you're filing a heavy exhibit pack, compress PDF before upload. The trick is to compress images aggressively while leaving text-layer pages untouched, which Flint does by default. If you have to split the file, use split PDF on logical boundaries — never mid-exhibit.
FAQ
Do courts accept colour PDFs?
Yes, though some jurisdictions still prefer black-and-white for the body and colour only for exhibits where colour is meaningful. Check the rules for your specific court.
Can I file scanned documents alongside native PDFs?
Yes, but combine them carefully. Scans should be straightened, rotated upright, and ideally OCR'd so the bundle is searchable. Mixed text-layer and scanned pages in the same document are fine.
What's the safest signature method for court filings?
An electronic signature applied with sign PDF and then flattened. Avoid live form fields, which some portals strip on upload.
What if my bundle exceeds the portal's size limit?
Compress images first, then split on logical boundaries (e.g. Volume 1: pleadings, Volume 2: exhibits). Never split mid-document.
Court portals are unforgiving but predictable. Build a flow that handles format, pagination, signatures, and size in that order, and the 4:55pm panic stops being part of your week. Start with a clean conversion.