I-130 Online Filers

[LBX 44]

9 minutes ago, StrawberryKiss said:

 

I haven't seen how that's possible after submitting the petition.

I am the petitioner responding:

I went to the same place I submitted my initial I-130 and I submitted several other documents and pictures. Here is my timeline:

Nov 2019 - I initially uploaded most of my key documents and initial I-130

End of Nov - I uploaded another corrected I-130 (to Other category)

Dec 2019 - I uploaded my marriage pictures to Other category; I uploaded my CV to  Employment category

Feb 2020 - I uploaded additional pictures.

March 2020 - more pictures.

 

July 2020 - Got approval letter.

 

[Nelly_M 7]

I am thinking about filing I-130 online as opposed to sending it in the mail, but I am confused about how do I present our timeline of relationship and load it in there. Do I create a word document with explanation and insert photo jpgs and then  save it as pdf? If I do that, I am afraid that the file might exceed the allowed size. On the other hand, if I start loading photos as individual files, they might be confused without any description provided etc. what is the best way to do it so that it looks presentable? Any help with this is greatly appreciated. 

[Babu Frik 1,162]

1 minute ago, Nelly_M said:

I am thinking about filing I-130 online as opposed to sending it in the mail, but I am confused about how do I present our timeline of relationship and load it in there. Do I create a word document with explanation and insert photo jpgs and then  save it as pdf? If I do that, I am afraid that the file might exceed the allowed size. On the other hand, if I start loading photos as individual files, they might be confused without any description provided etc. what is the best way to do it so that it looks presentable? Any help with this is greatly appreciated. 

I had to split mine up into multiple PDFs to meet the file size criteria.

Photos-Part-1.pdf

Photos-Part-2.pdf

 

Boarding-Passes-1.pdf

Boarding-Passes-2.pdf

 

I had about 4 photos per page, depending on the orientation,  below each one I added the date and short caption

 

NVC has an even smaller file size limit.

[Babu Frik 1,162]

On 2/15/2021 at 6:37 PM, mycase17 said:

Hello folks, I'm about to file my I-130 today. After I submitted the application, Is it possible to upload more documents after I already submitted in a month or so? 

you can but there's no guarantee they will look at it, I believe it says something like that in the section where you would add more.

I would still do it especially if you lacked something you think would result in an RFE, but also bring along when you get to the interview.

[seekingthetruth 1,248]

4 minutes ago, Babu Frik said:

I had to split mine up into multiple PDFs to meet the file size criteria.

Photos-Part-1.pdf

Photos-Part-2.pdf

 

Boarding-Passes-1.pdf

Boarding-Passes-2.pdf

 

I had about 4 photos per page, depending on the orientation,  below each one I added the date and short caption

 

NVC has an even smaller file size limit.

For various reasons this past year I had to convert many documents to PDF.  I hope it is OK to give a plug to the product I started using.  https://www.freepdfconvert.com/ will allow you to do an occasional conversion of all kinds of documents to pdf, and vice-versa.  The free mode is only 1 per hour, which is not much good for a project like applying for visas.  I liked it so I bought a monthly for $6 a month.  Later, I was going to buy a lifetime for $69, but when I canceled the $6 plan, they offer me 30% off, so I took that and now pay $4+ a month.

 

Unfortunately, they have raised the rates to $9/mo, $69/yr, 99/lifetime.  I kind of wish I had followed through with the lifetime for $69.

 

@Nelly_M, the great thing is that you can take different types of documents, convert to PDF, then merge them to one PDF, and then compress the final file to be a small PDF.  It worked great for my two I-130s.  For instance, I made a history of relationship in Word, with text and pictures.  Converted to PDF, then compressed it.  No problems with size.  It is all drag and drop to their online tools.

 

There are some competitors, but I like this one.  Google PDF converters.  Make sure they have a compress function.

[Babu Frik 1,162]

6 minutes ago, seekingthetruth said:

For various reasons this past year I had to convert many documents to PDF.  I hope it is OK to give a plug to the product I started using.  https://www.freepdfconvert.com/ will allow you to do an occasional conversion of all kinds of documents to pdf, and vice-versa.  The free mode is only 1 per hour, which is not much good for a project like applying for visas.  I liked it so I bought a monthly for $6 a month.  Later, I was going to buy a lifetime for $69, but when I canceled the $6 plan, they offer me 30% off, so I took that and now pay $4+ a month.

 

Unfortunately, they have raised the rates to $9/mo, $69/yr, 99/lifetime.  I kind of wish I had followed through with the lifetime for $69.

 

@Nelly_M, the great thing is that you can take different types of documents, convert to PDF, then merge them to one PDF, and then compress the final file to be a small PDF.  It worked great for my two I-130s.  For instance, I made a history of relationship in Word, with text and pictures.  Converted to PDF, then compressed it.  No problems with size.  It is all drag and drop to their online tools.

 

There are some competitors, but I like this one.  Google PDF converters.  Make sure they have a compress function.

adobe has a free online PDF compressor, sometimes it might compress too much and affect the quality though.

 

[Nelly_M 7]

27 minutes ago, Babu Frik said:

adobe has a free online PDF compressor, sometimes it might compress too much and affect the quality though.

 

Thank you guys. I was thinking about doing the same. I just hope that the pdf compressor won’t affect the quality of photos inserted. That seems better to me than loading individual photos each as a separate file. Also, if they allow splitting a timeline as two files as part 1 and 2 then that shouldn’t be a problem I assume. As long as it looks neat and easy to follow for USCIS. 
I also wanted to ask if we can load supporting docs files while working on the application, before I start working on the application or once the application is submitted? I am not sure how the system works. 

[top_secret 2,458]

For free software to make pdf's Libre Office works great.  You can just drag and drop you pictures into a page, zoom them to whatever size looks good, caption them in text boxes, add lines and arrows pointing out relevant details, etc. and when you have everything ready and looking good, export it as pdf with various options to optimize file size https://www.libreoffice.org/download

[seekingthetruth 1,248]

5 hours ago, Nelly_M said:

I also wanted to ask if we can load supporting docs files while working on the application, before I start working on the application or once the application is submitted? I am not sure how the system works. 

You have to actually start the application before you can upload anything, and it would not make sense anyway.  You will understand once you get in.  Create your account at USCIS and get started.  No obligation or pressure to do anything.  The I-130 has many sections, and you can jump around and review them.  If you have not completed a section it will warn you but you can still leave that section.  There are various places where you upload, if needed.

[Nelly_M 7]

17 hours ago, seekingthetruth said:

You have to actually start the application before you can upload anything, and it would not make sense anyway.  You will understand once you get in.  Create your account at USCIS and get started.  No obligation or pressure to do anything.  The I-130 has many sections, and you can jump around and review them.  If you have not completed a section it will warn you but you can still leave that section.  There are various places where you upload, if needed.

Great. Thank you so much! 

[Nelly_M 7]

On 2/18/2021 at 11:04 AM, Babu Frik said:

adobe has a free online PDF compressor, sometimes it might compress too much and affect the quality though.

 

What is the maximum file size allowed for upload?

[JKLSemicolon 414]

41 minutes ago, Nelly_M said:

What is the maximum file size allowed for upload?

6 mb. When I compressed PDFs I used Acrobat Professional (which I have access to through work) as it had much more customizable compression settings in the "Save as Optimized PDF" menu. But even so, I did have to split up some files into multiple parts. In that case, I used file names like Visit.History.Part1of3.pdf, Visit.History.Part2of3.pdf, etc.

[seekingthetruth 1,248]

On 2/19/2021 at 1:44 AM, Nelly_M said:

I just hope that the pdf compressor won’t affect the quality of photos inserted. That seems better to me than loading individual photos each as a separate file. Also, if they allow splitting a timeline as two files as part 1 and 2 then that shouldn’t be a problem I assume. As long as it looks neat and easy to follow for USCIS. 

Just to give you an idea of how it worked for me....

 

I created a Word document with 19 high quality photos in it, with text descriptions.  I then converted the Word doc to PDF, and then compressed it.  The final PDF is only 707 kb and the photos are still excellent quality.

 

Some of my larger files were those that contained scans of documents such as marriage certificate, birth certificate, etc.  However, my largest was just 3300 kb, 3.3 mb.

 

It is fine to use multiple uploads to accomplish a task.  I used them for clear organization.  Some places I wanted to have a master document, and in it I referred to other uploads, with logical names, in order.  Then I would upload them in the same order. I tried to make it as easy as possible for a reviewer to understand.

E.g.

Master Document  (includes references to....)

001 Attachment

002 Attachment

003 Attachment

etc.

[Chancy 6,242]

On 2/19/2021 at 12:57 AM, seekingthetruth said:

I made a history of relationship in Word, with text and pictures.  Converted to PDF, then compressed it.

 

I don't know which Word version you have, but ours has "Save as PDF" feature.  That's how we saved our bona fide evidence file for upload.  No need for a separate converter software, though I have no idea how Word's "Save as PDF" compression compares with the converter's performance.

 

[seekingthetruth 1,248]

6 minutes ago, Chancy said:

 

I don't know which Word version you have, but ours has "Save as PDF" feature.  That's how we saved our bona fide evidence file for upload.  No need for a separate converter software, though I have no idea how Word's "Save as PDF" compression compares with the converter's performance.

 

My version has an Export to PDF function but I didn't think about it at the time.