How to turn photos into a PDF
· 5 minute read
Combine phone photos of documents, receipts or notes into a single PDF: the order, page size, margins, and how to get a readable result.
A form that must be returned as a PDF, a pile of receipts, a passport photographed on a kitchen table: much of the paperwork people handle starts as photographs. Turning them into one clean PDF is quick once you know the few choices that matter.
Take better photographs first
The quality of the PDF is the quality of the pictures. A few seconds of care when you photograph pays off.
- Lay the document flat on a plain surface in even light. Shadows from your phone or your hand ruin legibility.
- Shoot from directly above, with the page filling the frame and the edges square.
- Hold still and let the camera focus. A sharp photograph of a page is far better than a blurred one.
- Photograph the pages in order, so they are already sorted.
Choose a page size
There are two reasonable choices. "Same as picture" makes each page exactly the shape of its image. This is best for something that will only be viewed on screen. A standard sheet, A4 or US Letter, fits each image onto a paper-sized page, turned to suit it. This is best if the document is going to be printed or uploaded to a portal that expects a normal page.
Choose a margin
A margin leaves white space around each picture. With a standard page size it makes the result look like a document rather than a photograph that happens to be in a PDF, and it keeps a printer from cutting off an edge.
Get the order right
The order of the list is the order of the pages. Check it before you convert. Sorting your files by name, with numbers at the front, avoids most of the mistakes.
Afterwards
- If the PDF needs to be searchable, run it through OCR PDF. Photographs are pictures, so a document made from them has no text until it is recognised.
- If it is too large to send, run it through Compress PDF. Phone photographs are usually far bigger than a page requires.
- Check every page in the preview. A missing or upside-down page is easy to fix now and embarrassing after it has been sent.
What about HEIC and other formats?
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF and BMP files are common and work well. Some phones save photographs in HEIC, which many programs cannot read. Change your camera’s setting to the most compatible format, or convert the picture to JPG first.
Tools mentioned
- JPG to PDF — Photos and scans gathered into one document, each page its image.
- OCR PDF — Make a scan searchable by reading the words off it.
- Compress PDF — A smaller file that still reads like the original.