When it comes to LinkedIn carousels, getting the size right can make or break your post's performance. For the best results, stick with either a 1080 x 1080 pixel square (a 1:1 aspect ratio) or a 1080 x 1350 pixel portrait (a 4:5 aspect ratio).
These two dimensions are the sweet spot. They ensure your content looks sharp and professional on every device, preventing any awkward cropping that can undermine your message. Think of it as the foundation for creating content that captivates your audience from the very first slide.
Your Quick Reference Guide to Carousel Specs
Getting your carousel dimensions right from the start is the first step toward creating content that stops the scroll. If your sizing is off, you risk blurry images, cut-off text, and a generally unprofessional look that completely undermines your message. Think of these specs as the blueprint for a great post.
So, why does this technical detail matter so much? Because LinkedIn’s feed is designed to showcase content that fits perfectly. When your visuals are sized correctly, they’re more likely to be displayed in full, grabbing immediate attention and encouraging that all-important first swipe. It’s a small detail with a huge impact on your engagement.
To help you get it right every time, here’s a quick-reference table with the essential numbers.
LinkedIn Carousel Quick Reference Specs
This table covers the core technicals you'll need, but always remember that the best-performing carousels blend these specs with a compelling story.
Key Carousel Dimensions and Limits
To build a flawless carousel, you need to know the core numbers. The optimal dimensions are straightforward: 1080 x 1080 pixels for a classic square or 1080 x 1350 pixels for a taller portrait. Both options look fantastic across desktop and mobile without any weird cropping.
While LinkedIn allows PDFs up to 100 MB and a massive 300 pages, real-world data shows the sweet spot for engagement is between 5 and 15 slides. Most top-performing carousels stick to the 6-12 slide range to keep their audience swiping without causing fatigue.
This visual sums up the most important specs perfectly.
As you can see, it highlights the recommended pixel dimensions for both square and portrait formats, plus that ideal slide count for keeping your audience hooked.
Making Specs Simple with PostNitro
Manually setting up these dimensions in a design tool can be a bit of a pain. This is exactly where PostNitro shines. Our AI-powered carousel maker automates the entire setup, so you never have to second-guess pixels, aspect ratios, or file sizes again.
PostNitro handles all the technical stuff behind the scenes. That means you get to focus on what really matters: crafting a compelling story that connects with your audience and drives results. With pre-sized templates and one-click formatting, creating a professional, perfectly optimized carousel is almost effortless. This approach ensures your content always meets LinkedIn’s guidelines, helping you publish high-impact visuals in a fraction of the time. For a wider perspective, take a look at our complete social media image sizes 2025 cheat sheet.
Why the Right Dimensions Are a Strategic Advantage
Getting your LinkedIn carousel dimensions right is more than a technical checkbox—it's a strategic move that directly impacts how your content performs. The aspect ratio you choose, either 1:1 (square) or 4:5 (portrait), dictates how much prime real estate your post claims in the feed. And in a crowded feed, every pixel counts.
While a standard square post gets the job done, a 4:5 portrait carousel gives you a serious edge. Because it’s taller, it physically fills more of the screen, a difference that's especially noticeable on mobile. This makes your content much harder to scroll past, compelling users to pause and engage with your first slide.
That extra screen space isn't just for show. It translates directly into higher dwell time—the amount of time someone spends looking at your post. The longer they linger, the more likely LinkedIn's algorithm is to flag your content as valuable and show it to a wider audience.
Maximizing Impact on Mobile Devices
Optimizing for mobile isn't optional anymore. With a huge portion of LinkedIn traffic coming from mobile devices, a mobile-first approach is the only way to win. This means your visuals need to be sized correctly and designed for absolute clarity on smaller screens.
Some key technical points to remember are designing with 15% safe zones to keep your text from getting cut off, using a high resolution of 300 DPI for sharpness, and sticking to vector-based text whenever possible. For a deeper dive into the technical side, you can explore these insights on creating effective LinkedIn content.
Choosing the 4:5 aspect ratio is a conscious decision to dominate the mobile feed, where the battle for attention is won or lost in seconds.
Ultimately, you have to connect the technical specs to your marketing goals. A taller carousel isn't just a bigger picture; it's a tool for driving higher click-through rates and better engagement. When you get the dimensions right, you're not just sharing information—you’re building an experience designed to stop the scroll.
Choosing the Best File Type for Your Carousel
Beyond pixel dimensions, the file format you choose is a critical piece of the puzzle for bringing your LinkedIn carousel to life. While LinkedIn accepts a few document types for carousels, including PDF, DOC, and DOCX, these options are not created equal when it comes to visual impact and professionalism.
Sure, you can use a DOC or DOCX file, but these formats can be a gamble, often leading to formatting glitches and inconsistencies once uploaded. If you want to lock in your design, maintain brand consistency, and present a sharp, polished look, a high-quality PDF is always the way to go. This format ensures your fonts, images, and layouts appear exactly as you intended on every device.
Understanding Technical Limits
LinkedIn has some firm rules for your carousel documents. Your file can’t be larger than 100 MB, and you can include up to 300 pages (or slides).
Now, just because you can create a 300-slide behemoth doesn’t mean you should. We all have limited attention spans. Data consistently shows that shorter, more impactful carousels simply perform better. Pushing the slide limit often leads to "swipe fatigue," where your audience gives up and scrolls past before they reach your main point or call to action.
The Sweet Spot for Slide Count
So, what's the magic number? For holding attention and driving real engagement, the sweet spot is generally between 5 and 15 slides. This range gives you enough runway to tell a compelling story, break down valuable insights, or showcase a product without overwhelming your audience.
For a deeper dive into optimizing every aspect of your document, check out our complete guide on the ideal LinkedIn carousel PDF size and format.
By focusing on a concise yet powerful story within 5 to 15 slides, you respect your audience's time and significantly increase the chances they will engage with your entire message.
Tools like PostNitro make this part easy, helping you generate perfectly formatted PDF carousels with the ideal number of slides. That way, you can focus on what really matters: creating content that truly connects with your network.
Create Flawless Carousels with PostNitro
Let's be honest, no one enjoys juggling pixel dimensions, aspect ratios, and file export settings. That technical busywork pulls you away from what really matters: crafting a powerful message. What if you could forget the specs and just focus on telling a great story?
This is exactly where an intelligent tool makes all the difference. PostNitro was built from the ground up to be the simplest, most effective way to nail your LinkedIn carousel size and format every single time. Our AI-powered platform takes care of all the technical details behind the scenes, so every carousel you create is pixel-perfect and ready to publish.
This screenshot shows just how simple PostNitro makes it to get started.
The interface is clean and straightforward, letting you generate a carousel from text, a URL, or a template. All the guesswork is gone.
Automate the Technical Details
Forget manual setups and design-tool headaches. PostNitro automates the tedious parts of carousel creation so you can stay in your creative zone. Whether you're starting with a blog post URL, a few lines of text, or one of our professionally designed templates, our AI ensures the final carousel is perfectly formatted for LinkedIn.
Our system automatically handles the critical details that are so easy to miss:
- Perfect Sizing: All templates and generated slides default to the optimal 1080x1350 pixel dimensions, giving you maximum screen real estate on mobile.
- Safe Zone Awareness: Our AI-curated layouts are designed to keep your crucial text and visuals within mobile-safe zones, so you never have to worry about awkward cropping.
- Optimized Exports: PostNitro exports your final carousel as a high-quality, web-optimized PDF, striking the perfect balance between visual clarity and a manageable file size.
From Idea to Published in Minutes
The real magic of PostNitro is its speed. You can generate a complete, beautifully designed carousel in a fraction of the time it would take using traditional design software. This means you can produce more high-quality content, more consistently—which is the key to growing your presence on LinkedIn.
With PostNitro, you’re not just making a carousel; you’re streamlining your entire content workflow. The platform’s features, like custom branding and one-click resizing, ensure brand consistency without the manual effort.
By removing the technical hurdles, you’re free to experiment with different ideas and messages. Turn your next great idea into a stunning, perfectly sized visual story. You can explore our powerful and easy-to-use AI-powered carousel maker to see just how fast you can build your next post. The platform empowers you to create content that not only looks professional but also drives real engagement.
Exporting Perfect Carousels from Your Favorite Tools
While PostNitro’s AI is built to handle carousel creation from start to finish, we know many creators have their trusted design tools. Getting the export settings just right in software like Canva, Figma, or Adobe Illustrator is the final, crucial step to producing a professional, LinkedIn-ready PDF.
The goal is always the same: balance crisp, clear visuals with a file size that stays under LinkedIn's 100 MB limit. Each tool handles this a bit differently, but the core principles don't change. You need to make sure every single page or artboard is set to the correct linkedin carousel size—either 1080x1080 pixels for a classic square or 1080x1350 pixels for a more modern portrait look.
Settings for Canva
Canva is a favorite for social media managers because it keeps things simple. It’s designed to get you high-quality results without a lot of fuss, but a couple of specific settings will ensure your LinkedIn carousel is perfect.
Here’s the quick rundown:
- Click the Share button in the top-right corner of your design.
- Choose Download from the menu.
- For File type, select PDF Standard. This gives you a great balance of quality and small file size. If your design is packed with detailed graphics, PDF Print is a higher-quality option, but watch out for the larger file size.
- Make sure All pages is checked.
- Click Download.
That’s it. Canva will bundle all your pages into a single, optimized PDF ready for you to upload.
Exporting from Figma and Illustrator
For designers who work in more advanced tools like Figma or Adobe Illustrator, you get far more control over the export process, which is fantastic for optimization. The key in both programs is to set up your slides as individual frames (in Figma) or artboards (in Illustrator) in the exact order you want them to appear.
A quick pro tip: Always double-check that your color profile is set to RGB. It's the standard for anything viewed on a screen. If you accidentally export in CMYK (which is for print), your colors will likely look off once you upload to LinkedIn.
In Figma, you can simply select all your frames and export them together as one PDF. In Illustrator, you'll use the "Save As" function, choose the PDF format, and select a preset like "[High Quality Print]." From there, you can fine-tune the settings to remove any printer marks and downsample images for web use if needed.
Export Settings for Design Software
Here’s a quick comparison of the recommended export settings for turning your designs into a LinkedIn-ready carousel PDF across popular tools.
No matter which software you’re loyal to, mastering these small but mighty export settings is what turns your hard work into a flawless experience for your audience. Once your file is ready, you can find a complete walkthrough in our guide on how to publish a carousel on LinkedIn.
Common Carousel Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Even the most brilliant content can fall flat if it’s derailed by a simple technical mistake. When it comes to the correct LinkedIn carousel size and format, getting the details right is the difference between a professional post and an amateur one. These small errors can completely undermine all your hard work.
We see it all the time: blurry images from low-resolution uploads, key text getting cut off because it’s outside the mobile-safe zones, or someone exporting their slides as individual JPGs instead of the required single PDF. Another classic is creating a beautiful carousel that’s too large to upload, blowing past LinkedIn’s 100 MB file size limit.
Solving Sizing and Formatting Errors
The good news is that troubleshooting these problems is easier than you think. Every common issue has a straightforward fix that will get your content looking polished and performing at its best.
For instance, a pixelated image is usually the result of saving it at low quality or stretching it beyond its original dimensions. The solution? Always start with high-quality source images and export your slides from any design tool at a high resolution, like 300 DPI.
Getting these technical details wrong can have a surprisingly large impact on performance. Some reports show engagement can drop by as much as 40% due to poor formatting. Get it right, and you're golden. Learn more about the impact of carousel formatting on LigoSocial.com.
This is exactly why a tool like PostNitro is so valuable. Our AI handles all the formatting behind the scenes, ensuring your slides are perfectly sized and optimized from the start. It frees you up to focus on your message, not the technical specs. You can dive deeper into other common carousel mistakes that kill engagement in our detailed guide.
Frequently Asked Questions About Carousel Specs
Getting the hang of the ideal LinkedIn carousel size can feel a bit confusing at first. Don't worry, it's a common hurdle. To clear things up, we've put together answers to the most frequent questions we hear, reinforcing the key specs you need to know.
What Is the Best Size for a LinkedIn Carousel?
The best size options are either 1080 x 1080 pixels for a classic square (1:1 aspect ratio) or 1080 x 1350 pixels for a taller portrait (4:5) format.
Our strong recommendation is to go with the portrait size. Why? It simply takes up more vertical real estate in the mobile feed. That extra space is a game-changer for grabbing attention and boosting engagement as people scroll.
Can I Upload Multiple PNGs for a Carousel?
This is a common question: no, you can't. LinkedIn doesn't let you upload a series of individual image files (like PNGs or JPGs) and turn them into a carousel.
You have to combine all your slides into a single document first. The only file types LinkedIn accepts for this are PDF, DOC, or DOCX. For content creators, PDF is the undisputed industry standard because it preserves your design's quality and formatting perfectly.
How Many Slides Should a LinkedIn Carousel Have?
Technically, LinkedIn lets you include up to 300 slides in a single document. But for real-world engagement, the sweet spot is somewhere between 5 and 15 slides.
This range gives you enough room to tell a compelling story or break down valuable information without causing "swipe fatigue." The most successful carousels often land in the 6-12 slide range, keeping viewers hooked right to the end.
Remember: the goal isn't to hit the slide limit. It's to deliver a concise, high-impact message that respects your audience's time and makes them want to see that final slide.
Does LinkedIn Reduce My Carousel Quality?
Yes, LinkedIn often compresses uploaded documents to ensure they load quickly, which can sometimes result in a drop in visual quality. It's frustrating, but there are ways to minimize it.
To get the best results, always start with a high-resolution file (300 DPI is best), use vector-based text and graphics whenever possible, and export your PDF using a "high quality" or "web-optimized" preset in your design tool. This gives LinkedIn's compression algorithm a much better starting point, resulting in a crisper final product.
Tired of wrestling with specs and letting compression ruin your designs? Let AI handle the tedious stuff. With PostNitro, you can generate perfectly sized, professionally designed carousels from text, a URL, or a template in just a few minutes. Create your flawless carousel today.
About Qurratulain Awan
Digital marketing expert helping brands turn followers into cusotmer.