A 500 KB PDF test file

About this file

A 500 KB test file in PDF format, sized to exactly 512,000 bytes. Free to download with no signup, for verifying upload limits and file-handling behaviour.

The MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 values listed above are the real digests of this file. Recomputing them after download confirms the transfer was not corrupted, and they double as known-good expected values when testing a hashing library.

What this size means in practice

500 KB is a realistic size for a single high-resolution photo. It puts a load close to real-world data on front-end image optimisation and preview-generation paths.

Base64-encoded it grows to roughly 667 KB, because Base64 inflates data by about 33%. If you embed files in data URIs, email attachments, or JSON payloads, your limits must account for that expansion.

Getting a feel for this size

On a 10 Mbps link the transfer takes roughly 410 ms, and about 41 ms at 100 Mbps. Base64-encoded it grows to roughly 667 KB.

Assuming a text-oriented PDF with embedded fonts runs about 80 KB per page, this size is on the order of 6 pages. Image-heavy PDFs will hold far fewer pages at the same size.

What to check for this format

PDF starts with the %PDF- signature and keeps a cross-reference table (xref) at the end that points to every object. Because of that layout, losing the tail of the file makes the whole document unreadable — which makes PDF a good subject for truncation-detection tests.

• Whether page-count extraction and text extraction finish without timing out on large files
• The time and memory cost of thumbnail generation, i.e. rasterising the first page
• Because PDF can embed JavaScript and external references, whether your sanitisation path runs when accepting user uploads