E-filing PDF requirements in the Northern District of California

Updated September 5, 2026. Not legal advice; confirm the current rule, the local rules and any order in your case.

What the court requires

Quoted from Preparing Your CM/ECF Filing (cand.uscourts.gov), read September 5, 2026.

Size (court guidance)

Files that exceed 50MB cannot be e-filed

Check: File size before upload. The limit is larger than in many districts, but a scanned deposition with exhibits can pass it.

Oversized files (court guidance)

File in sections, labelled for example Exhibit A, Part 1 of 3.

Check: Split at document boundaries and label parts so the docket reads in order.

PDF/A (court guidance)

PDF/A is not at this time required, but has the least likelihood of being rejected.

Check: Not mandatory here, but the safest format. A PDF/A file has no scripts or external actions, which also satisfies the rejection rule below.

Code in the file (court guidance)

ECF rejects a document that is malformed or contains code which may cause an external action (such as launching an application).

Check: Scripts, launch actions, and links or form actions that open other applications. These come in through forms, editing tools and documents assembled from other files, and they are invisible on the page.

The court's page also covers slip sheets for exhibits, signatures on e-filed documents and what may not be e-filed at all; read it in full before a first filing.

The rejection rule for code is the one most likely to catch a careful filer. A fillable form with a calculation script, a document with an auto-print action or a set assembled from files that carried JavaScript is rejected even though every page looks right.

Text-searchable filings are not quoted as a requirement on this page; they remain the expectation in practice and are needed for the court's own search.

Read the current page before every filing. Court guidance pages change without a version number; the quotes above were read on the date shown.

How to check a file before filing

• File size, against the court’s per-file limit, and a plan for splitting at document boundaries if it is over.
• A text layer on every page; OCR scanned pages and check that search finds a word on each.
• No encryption, no JavaScript, no launch or external actions, no attachments, no XFA forms: the things that make a viewer or a clerk’s system reject a file.
• Fonts embedded, if the court requires PDF/A; standard fonts that are not embedded are the usual failure.
• Bookmarks for each exhibit and a flattened set of form fields, so the reader sees what you see.
• The current rule, read today. Court guidance changes without notice.

The general checklist, with state courts and the common causes of a bounced filing, is in E-filing preflight.

How ExhibitSet handles it

ExhibitSet's filing check runs a court profile against the file in your browser: size, text on every page, encryption, scripts and external actions, attachments, fonts, page size, comments, forms, bookmarks, web links and PDF/A readiness, with the rules and their sources shown with the report. Safe fixes (strip active content, flatten forms, remove comments) apply with one click, and an oversized file splits into labelled parts, each with its own report. Every limit is editable, because courts change theirs. Nothing is uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

Is PDF/A required in the Northern District of California?

Not at this time, according to the court's guidance, but PDF/A has the least likelihood of being rejected. Filing PDF/A is the safe choice.

Why would a normal-looking PDF be rejected?

ECF rejects a file that is malformed or contains code that may cause an external action, such as launching an application. Form scripts, launch actions and some links do that without changing how the page looks.

How should a file over 50 MB be filed?

In sections, labelled for example Exhibit A, Part 1 of 3. Splitting at document boundaries keeps each exhibit whole.