How to turn photos or scans into one PDF

Receipts for an expense claim, photos of signed pages, screenshots for a report: many forms and offices want a single PDF instead of a pile of images. Here is how to make one that looks like a document rather than a photo album.

Prepare the photos

• Photograph pages flat, in good light, with the page filling most of the frame.
• Crop away the table or background if it is visible. A clean edge makes the result look like a scan.
• Phone photos are often stored sideways with a note telling viewers how to turn them. Images to PDF reads that note and turns them upright.

Page size, orientation and margins

For documents, choose A4 (most of the world) or US Letter (USA, Canada and a few other countries) and no or small margins. Each image is scaled to fit the page without stretching or cutting it. “Match each image” turns landscape pictures sideways on the page automatically. “Same as each image” makes every page exactly the size of its picture, which suits screenshots and slides.

Building the PDF

1. Add the images. The first one becomes page 1.
2. Fix the order with the arrows or by dragging.
3. Choose the page size, orientation and margins, then create the PDF.

Keeping the file small

JPEG and PNG images are placed in the PDF as they are, so the PDF is about as large as the images together. Ten phone photos can easily reach 30 MB or more. Either compress the PDF afterwards with the photo method, or resize the photos to around 2000 pixels on the long side before adding them. For text documents that is still sharp when printed.