How to turn phone photos of documents into one PDF
Updated 16 October 2026
You do not need a scanner to send a document as a PDF. A few phone photos and a minute are enough, and the result is easier to read than a stack of separate images.
Take good photos first
- Use daylight or a bright room, and avoid your own shadow on the page.
- Lay the page flat on a dark, plain surface, so its edges stand out.
- Hold the phone straight above the page and fill the frame with it.
- One photo per page, in order.
Put the photos into one PDF
- Open Image to PDF and add the photos (JPG or PNG). You can choose them straight from your phone’s photo library.
- Drag them into page order, or use the arrow buttons.
- Choose the page size: A4 or US Letter for documents, or Same as the image to keep each photo’s own shape. Leave the orientation on Match each image.
- Choose a margin: “No margin” fills the page, “Small” looks like a printed scan.
- Select Create PDF and download it.
Photos taken sideways are turned the right way up automatically: phones store the rotation in the photo, and the tool reads it.
iPhone photos (HEIC)
iPhones save photos as HEIC by default, a format this site cannot open. Either share the photos as JPG (most share menus offer it), or set Settings › Camera › Formats to Most Compatible for future photos.
Keep the PDF small
Phone photos are large, so a PDF of ten photos can be 30 MB or more. Two ways to shrink it:
- Compress the photos before you make the PDF, or
- Compress the PDF afterwards; “Smallest file” is plenty for documents read on a screen.
The photos stay on your phone or computer: the PDF is made in your browser, and nothing is uploaded.