Guide
Submitting iPhone photos of documents as a PDF
An iPhone is often the only scanner people have. You photograph a contract, a payslip, your homework or a stack of receipts, and then the website you need to upload them to says: PDF only. On top of that, the photos are saved as HEIC, which Windows, many portals and older apps can’t read. This tool solves both problems at once, on your phone or computer, without uploading the photos.
On an iPhone or iPad
- Open this page in Safari.
- Tap the drop area and choose Photo Library (or Choose File to pick from the Files app).
- Select the photos in the order you want, or reorder them afterwards with the arrows.
- Choose A4 or US Letter, then Create PDF.
- The PDF is saved to Downloads in the Files app, ready to attach or upload.
When Safari shares photos with a web page it may convert them to JPG first; that’s fine, the PDF is the same.
On a Windows PC or a Mac
Copy the HEIC files from the phone (or download them from iCloud Photos) and drop them here. Decoding takes a second or two per photo, a little longer on slower computers.
Settings for document photos
- Page size A4 or Letter gives pages that print and display like a normal document. Wide photos get a landscape page automatically.
- Margin: Small looks tidy; None uses the whole page.
- Quality: Lossless keeps the converted photo exactly. If a portal has a size limit (often 2 to 5 MB), choose Smaller file, or compress the finished PDF with Compress PDF.
For photos taken at an angle, with shadows or a busy background, the Scan to PDF tool’s document filter gives cleaner black-and-white pages.
Mixing formats
Photos received over WhatsApp or downloaded from email are often JPG. Add them to the same list as your HEIC files; JPG and PNG are placed in the PDF without re-encoding, HEIC photos are converted, and everything follows the order of the list.
Avoiding HEIC in the future
If you need JPG photos regularly, change the camera format on the iPhone: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible. New photos will be JPG; existing ones stay HEIC. To convert HEIC to separate image files instead of a PDF, use HEIC to JPG.
Identity documents and privacy
Passports, ID cards, bank statements and medical letters are the documents people most often photograph. Uploading them to a free online converter means trusting a stranger’s server with them. Here the decoding happens in your browser using WebAssembly, and the PDF is created on your device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
A worked example: a visa application
- Photograph the passport page, a bank letter and a hotel booking on the iPhone.
- Add all three HEIC photos, A4, small margin, lossless.
- Create the PDF and check the size: 4.1 MB, over the portal’s 2 MB limit.
- Run it through Compress PDF, then upload.
Troubleshooting
- A photo fails to convert: it may be a HEIC sequence, such as a Live Photo export or burst. Export it again from Photos as a still image, or take a screenshot of it.
- The PDF is very large: iPhone photos have 12 to 48 megapixels. Choose Smaller file, or compress the PDF afterwards.
Checked against the current version of the HEIC to PDF on .