Files never leave your device.How it works
How to compress a PDF to 300 KB
- 1Drop your PDF above (or click to select).
- 2Click Compress — we find the best quality that stays under 300 KB.
- 3Download the result, or see the smallest we could reach.
Frequently asked questions
- Is 300 KB a good general size?
- Yes — it's a comfortable balance for most web forms and email, keeping multi-page documents and light scans clearly readable without a huge file.
- Will the text stay selectable?
- Yes. Real text is preserved; only images are re-encoded, and scanned pages are downscaled to a sensible resolution.
- Do my files get uploaded?
- No — everything runs in your browser. Your PDF never leaves your device.
A comfortable middle ground
300 KB is a practical target: small enough to email or attach without trouble, yet roomy enough that a few pages or a light scan stay crisp. It's a good default when a form doesn't force a tighter limit but you still want a lean file.
What fits at 300 KB
Multi-page text documents and moderately-scanned pages compress under 300 KB while remaining clearly legible. Heavily illustrated reports may need the Small preset or a split. As always, HivePDF searches for the best quality under the limit and, if the target can't be met, returns the smallest clean version and tells you so.
Choosing 300 KB versus a neighbouring target
If a portal states an exact limit, use the matching size — 200 KB or 500 KB — rather than 300 KB and hoping it's close enough. Where 300 KB earns its place is when there's no hard number, just a general sense that a file should be "not too big": a report you're emailing, a document going into a shared drive with a soft size convention, or a submission where recipients have complained about slow-loading attachments before. It reliably lands smaller than the untouched original without visibly hurting screenshots or diagrams the way a 100 KB or 200 KB target sometimes must.
What tends to compress well at this size
Business documents with a handful of screenshots, charts exported as images, or a couple of photos alongside several pages of text are the sweet spot — there's enough plain text to keep the average page light, and enough headroom in the 300 KB budget that the images don't need heavy downsampling. A file that's almost entirely full-page photographs will still shrink, but expect more visible softening than a mixed document would show.