Question 1

Will my photos lose quality in the PDF?

Accepted Answer

Not JPGs. A PDF can hold JPEG data as it is, so a grey or colour JPG goes in byte for byte and the PDF is about as large as the photos added together. PNG, GIF and BMP are stored without loss as well. WebP, AVIF and CMYK JPGs are the exception: a PDF cannot hold them directly, so they are redrawn and saved as JPEG at high quality.

Question 2

Why were my photos sideways in other converters?

Accepted Answer

A phone stores most photos lying on their side and adds a note saying how to turn them, the Exif Orientation tag. A PDF has nowhere to keep that note, so a converter that copies the pixels without reading it puts the photo in the way the sensor saw it. This tool reads the tag and draws each photo upright. If one still looks wrong, the rotate button under its page turns it a quarter turn at a time.

Question 3

Which page size should I choose?

Accepted Answer

A4 for anything printed or submitted outside the US and Canada, US Letter inside them, Legal for documents that need the longer sheet. Choose Same as each image when the PDF is only going to be read on a screen, such as a set of screenshots or a photo album, since every page then has the exact shape of its image and no white bands.

Question 4

What is the difference between Whole image and Fill the page?

Accepted Answer

Whole image scales each photo until it fits inside the margins, so nothing is cut off and white bands fill whatever space is left. Fill the page scales it until it covers the whole area inside the margins and cuts off what overflows. Use Whole image for documents and receipts, where an edge may carry something you need, and Fill for photos meant to look like prints.

Question 5

Can I convert iPhone HEIC photos?

Accepted Answer

Only in a browser that can open HEIC, which in practice means Safari. Elsewhere the file is refused with a message. On the iPhone, Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible makes the camera save JPEG from then on, and Settings, Photos, Transfer to Mac or PC, Automatic converts photos to JPEG when you copy them to a computer.

Question 6

How many images can go into one PDF?

Accepted Answer

Up to 100, each up to 50 MB. Since JPGs are copied in whole, the PDF is roughly the total size of the images, so a hundred 4 MB photos make a PDF of about 400 MB. If the result needs to go by email, shrink the photos first with an image compressor or resizer.

Question 7

Why is the PDF bigger than my PNG screenshots?

Accepted Answer

A PDF stores PNG pixels with its own compression, which is often less efficient than the encoder that saved the PNG, and transparency becomes a second, separate image. Screenshots full of text and flat colour can grow noticeably as a result. Saving them as high-quality JPGs first usually makes a much smaller PDF, with text that is slightly less crisp.

Question 8

Do the page previews match the PDF?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The previews and the PDF use the same calculation for the page size, the margins and where each image goes, so the page you see is the page you get. Only the sharpness differs, since the previews are drawn from small copies of your images.

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