How to turn pictures into a PDF (JPG, PNG, HEIC and scans)

Which method should you use?

All of these methods give you a real PDF that opens anywhere. The difference is convenience and what happens when you have several pictures.

Whichever you pick, decide two things first: the page size, usually Letter in the US or the picture's own size, and the order of the pages. Renaming the files 01, 02, 03 before you start keeps the order right in every tool.

• Several photos or screenshots that must end up as one PDF, in a chosen order: an online converter such as Image to PDF, or Preview on a Mac.
• A paper document in front of you: scan it with your phone. The iPhone and Android scanners straighten the page and crop the background, which a plain photo does not.
• One picture on a Windows PC: Print to PDF from the Photos app, no download needed.
• iPhone photos in HEIC format that another tool rejects: a converter that accepts HEIC, or change the camera setting.

How to turn several pictures into one PDF online

DocGopher's Image to PDF turns JPG, PNG, HEIC, WEBP and more into a PDF. It is free, needs no sign-up, adds no watermark, and takes up to 50 files per batch, up to 300 MB. Files are processed in memory and deleted after 30 minutes, and it works in the browser on a phone or a computer.

If you already have several separate PDFs, for example one per scan, join them with the Merge PDF tool instead of starting over, and fix the page order with Organize pages.

1. Open Image to PDF. For a folder of JPGs you can also use JPG to PDF, and for screenshots PNG to PDF. They lead to the same converter.
2. Select all the pictures at once, or drag them onto the page. On a phone, pick them from your photo library or the Files app.
3. Put them in the order you want. Check the sequence before you convert, since page order is the thing most people have to redo.
4. Convert and download the PDF. Open it once and flip through the pages.

How to scan documents to PDF on an iPhone

Your iPhone has a document scanner built in, and it produces a PDF, not a photo. It detects the page edges, straightens the perspective and brightens the paper. You find it in two apps.

Choose Color, Grayscale or Black and White from the filters icon. Black and White makes the smallest file and the most legible text for typed documents. Keep Color for anything with a stamp, a signature in ink or a photo.

1. In Notes: open a note, tap the camera icon above the keyboard, then Scan Documents. Hold the phone over the page. It captures automatically when the page is in frame, or tap the shutter.
2. Scan every page of the document in turn, then tap Save. The scan appears in the note as one multi-page PDF.
3. Tap the scan, then the Share button, to send it by email, save it to Files or upload it to a converter.
4. In Files: open a folder, tap the three dots at the top, then Scan Documents. The PDF is saved straight to that folder.

How to scan documents to PDF on Android

Android phones vary by maker, but the Google Drive app is on nearly all of them and its scanner saves a PDF directly to your Drive.

Samsung phones also scan from the camera app: point at a document and tap the Scan button that appears, and the scan lands in Gallery. The Google Files app and many Android photo apps offer the same feature. If your scan arrived as a JPG instead of a PDF, convert it with any method on this page.

1. Open Google Drive and tap the plus button, then Scan. On recent versions a camera button appears at the bottom right instead.
2. Point the camera at the page. Drive detects the edges. Tap the shutter if it does not capture by itself.
3. Adjust the crop if needed, then tap Add page for the next sheet, and Done when the document is complete.
4. Name the file and choose a folder. The PDF is saved to Drive and you can download or share it from there.

How to save a picture as a PDF on Windows

Windows 10 and 11 include a virtual printer called Microsoft Print to PDF. Anything you can print becomes a PDF, including pictures.

The order of the pages follows the order of the files in the folder, so sort or rename them first. Print to PDF cannot reorder pages afterwards and offers no compression setting, so a PDF from ten phone photos can reach 30 MB or more.

1. Open the picture in the Photos app, or select several pictures in File Explorer.
2. Press Ctrl and P, or right-click the selected files and choose Print.
3. Set the printer to Microsoft Print to PDF. Choose Letter as the paper size and pick a layout. Full page photo gives one picture per page.
4. Uncheck Fit picture to frame if the edges are being cropped.
5. Click Print, choose a folder and a name, and the PDF is saved.

How to make a picture a PDF on a Mac

macOS has two built-in ways and both handle several pictures at once.

The Print route gives you Letter pages with the pictures scaled to fit, which is what forms and offices expect. The Quick Action route keeps each picture at its own dimensions, which is better for images that must not be resized.

1. Quick Action: select the pictures in Finder in the order you want, right-click, and choose Quick Actions, Create PDF. A PDF appears next to the files with one picture per page at the picture's own size.
2. Preview: select the pictures, right-click, Open With, Preview. They open in one window with a thumbnail sidebar.
3. Drag the thumbnails in the sidebar to reorder them, then select all of them with Cmd and A.
4. Choose File, Print, set the paper size to US Letter, and pick Save as PDF from the PDF menu in the bottom left of the print dialog.

What about HEIC photos from an iPhone?

Since iOS 11, iPhones save photos as HEIC by default. The format is efficient, but older Windows PCs, many web forms and some converters do not accept it. You have three options.

On a Mac, HEIC opens in Preview without any change, so the Mac methods above already work. The iPhone's own scanner always produces a PDF and never a HEIC, which is one more reason to scan paper documents rather than photograph them.

• Use a converter that reads HEIC directly. HEIC to PDF turns iPhone photos into a PDF that is accepted everywhere.
• Convert the photos to JPG first with the Convert image format tool, then continue with any method on this page.
• Change the camera setting so future photos are JPG: Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible. When you share from the Photos app by email or AirDrop, the iPhone usually converts to JPG automatically anyway.

Making the PDF searchable and small

A PDF made from pictures is still pictures. You cannot search it, copy a sentence from it, or have a screen reader read it. If the pages contain text, run the file through OCR after you make it. It reads the text in scans and photos so you can search, copy and convert it, and the page still looks the same.

Phone photos are also large. A ten-page PDF of camera photos can be 20 to 40 MB, too much for most email and upload limits. Compress PDF makes it smaller for email and upload while keeping it readable. For a typed document, scanning in Black and White in the first place reduces the size more than any compression afterwards.

Finally, if the PDF needs a signature, you can draw or type one with the Sign PDF tool, and a password protects anything you would not want read if the email is forwarded.