PDF compression
Compress a PDF to 300 KB
A middle ground: stricter than 500 KB, but kinder to photos and charts than 200 KB.
Drag & drop your PDF here
or click to browse
What 300 KB is good for
Think of 300 KB as the sensible middle. It’s small enough for most portals that list “under 300 KB,” yet it leaves a bit more breathing room than 200 KB for a photo, a stamp, or a colour chart. For a resume with a headshot, or a report with a couple of graphs, you’ll often notice the photo looks a touch cleaner here than at 200 KB.
If your scan was taken in colour on your phone, 300 KB is often the point where the seal stops looking speckled and the small print stays continuous, without having to jump all the way to 500 KB.
Should you pick this, 200 KB, or 500 KB?
Don’t overthink it: match what the site asks for. If it says 300 KB, use this one. If it says 200 KB, a 300 KB file will still be rejected even though it looks nicer. If it says 500 KB or “up to 1 MB,” a 500 KB file will be slightly sharper, so use that instead.
One practical rule: if a colour scan looked a little soft at 200 KB, try this next before going to 500 KB. Often that extra headroom is enough.
How to use it
- Start from the original again. Don’t feed it a file you’ve already compressed once: you’ll just make the images softer.
- Drop the PDF here. The tool tries a lighter setting first and only gets stronger if it still doesn’t fit, so you keep the best-looking version that passes.
- Do a 10-second check. Zoom to about 150% and glance at seals and tiny footnotes. At 300 KB they should look clean. Then download and upload.
When it might still not hit 300 KB
Most PDFs made it easily. You’ll only bump the ceiling if:
The PDF is a long photo catalogue
Fifteen pages of product photos at full camera resolution need more space than a normal portal expects. Shrinking the source photos to about 1200–1500 pixels wide before you build the PDF helps far more than forcing compression later. See how to prepare images first.
It’s a scanned PDF saved in a wasteful way
Some scanners tuck a full, uncompressed image inside the PDF. It looks normal but the file is huge. Rescanning that one page at a modest resolution in grayscale usually beats any amount of later compression.
What it does to readability
At 300 KB you probably won’t notice a difference unless you put the original and the new file side by side. Typed text is unchanged: we keep the font data for the letters you actually typed. Photos get a very light smoothing that’s usually invisible at normal zoom. Charts keep their colour distinctions, which matters when a marksheet uses colour bands.
For printing, you’d be hard-pressed to tell. For upload, it’s the safest choice when you can’t afford a rejection but also can’t afford a blurry stamp.
Works locally, on any device
Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari: desktop, Android, iOS. The pages are rendered and rebuilt right in your browser, so the file isn’t sent anywhere. That’s convenient on a phone and more appropriate for papers with personal details.
Frequently asked questions
My document is mostly photos. Will 300 KB keep them clear?
Better than 100 or 200 KB, yes. If the photos are central: say an art portfolio: you may still prefer 500 KB. For a marksheet’s small photo and a couple of charts, 300 KB keeps them clear enough for reviewers.
How long does it take?
A few seconds on a computer, a bit longer on a phone for a heavy scan. The 300 KB setting usually finishes quickly because it doesn’t have to push to the strongest level.