Images to PDF Converter
Turning a folder of images into one PDF is the standard way to submit scanned paperwork, since almost every institutional upload form accepts PDF and almost none accept twelve separate JPGs. The conversion runs in the page.
How to use it
- Drop in your .png or .jpg images. They are added in selection order.
- Each image becomes one page, sized to the image.
- The combined PDF downloads immediately.
How pages are sized
Each image becomes a page whose dimensions match the image, rather than being forced onto a fixed paper size. This avoids the white margins and awkward centring you get when a portrait photo is dropped onto a landscape A4 page, and it means nothing is cropped.
The trade-off is that a PDF built from mixed-size images has mixed-size pages, which looks uneven when printed. If the output is destined for a printer rather than a screen, normalise your images to consistent dimensions before converting.
The DPI question
An image knows its pixel dimensions but not its intended physical size. A 2550 by 3300 pixel scan is a US Letter page at 300 DPI, or a poster at 72 DPI, and nothing in the pixel data distinguishes the two. JPEG files carry a DPI field in their metadata, but it is frequently wrong or absent, since most cameras and scanners set it arbitrarily.
PDF works in points, at 72 per inch. Pages here are sized by mapping pixels to points at a sensible assumed density, which produces reasonable physical dimensions for typical scans. If exact physical size matters, for instance because a form must print at true scale, set the size explicitly in a PDF editor afterwards.
Orientation and file size
Photographs taken on a phone often record their rotation as an EXIF orientation flag rather than by rotating the stored pixels. Programs that ignore that flag display the image sideways, which is why a photo that looks correct in your gallery can appear rotated elsewhere. Rotate images in an editor and re-save before converting if you see this, since that bakes the rotation into the pixels.
On size: JPEG images are embedded without re-encoding, so the PDF is roughly the sum of the source files plus a small overhead. PNG images are typically larger to begin with. A PDF assembled from twenty phone photographs can easily exceed 50 MB, which matters when the upload form you are targeting has a limit. Reducing the source images first is more effective than anything done at the PDF stage.
The result is not searchable
A PDF built from images contains images. Even where the images are photographs of text, there is no text layer, so the document cannot be searched and its content is invisible to screen readers. Run OCR afterwards if searchable text is required.
At a glance
| Accepted input | .png, .jpg, .jpeg |
|---|---|
| Page size | Matched to each image |
| Order | Selection order |
| Text layer | None, images only |
Frequently asked questions
Can I control the page order?
Pages follow the order in which you select the files. Naming your images 01, 02, 03 and selecting them all at once is the most reliable approach, since the file picker sorts by name.
Why is the PDF so large?
Images are embedded at full resolution without recompression. Twenty phone photos produce a PDF roughly the size of twenty phone photos. Downscale the images first if you need a smaller file.
Can I search the text in my scanned pages?
No. The PDF contains pictures of text, not text. OCR software can add a searchable layer afterwards.
One of my photos is rotated the wrong way.
Its rotation is stored as an EXIF flag rather than applied to the pixels. Open it in an image editor, rotate it, and re-save so the rotation is baked in, then convert again.
Read more
Working with documents: PDF, DOCX, and spreadsheets — Document formats encode intent as much as content, and conversions between them succeed or fail on whether that intent was recorded.