TIFF to PDF

TIFF is the workhorse of document archives. Scanners, fax servers, medical and legal systems, and digitisation projects all produce it, often with many pages in one file. It is also a format that phones, email apps and most web browsers can’t display. Converting TIFF to PDF keeps every page and makes the document readable anywhere.

Multi-page TIFFs

A single TIFF file can hold many pages, one after another. Faxes and batch scans are usually stored this way. The converter reads every page in the file and puts them in the PDF in the same order. Small preview images that some software embeds next to the real pages are recognised and skipped.

You can add several files at once; the PDF follows the order of the list, and you can move files up and down before converting.

Keeping the real paper size

TIFF files record the resolution they were scanned at, such as 200 or 300 dots per inch. With Actual size (from scan resolution), the default here, each page becomes exactly as large as the paper that was scanned: an A4 sheet scanned at any resolution becomes an A4 page, a receipt stays receipt-sized. That is what you want for archives and for printing.

Choose A4 or US Letter instead to fit every page onto one standard size, for example when scans came from different devices. Same as image uses 96 pixels per inch, the screen convention.

Fax resolutions

Standard-resolution faxes are scanned at 204 × 98 dpi: the pixels are about twice as tall as they are wide. Viewers that ignore this show faxes squashed to half their height. The converter reads both resolutions separately, so fax pages come out with the right proportions.

Compression and quality

TIFF files can use several compressions. The converter reads uncompressed, LZW, PackBits and Deflate images, and the CCITT Group 3 and 4 compression used by fax machines and black-and-white scanners.

In the PDF, choose:

• Lossless for documents, faxes, line drawings and anything you might OCR later. Every pixel stays as it was.
• Smaller file for color photographs and colorful scans, where JPEG compression saves a lot of space with little visible change.

What a TIFF-based PDF is (and isn’t)

The PDF pages are pictures, exactly like the TIFF pages. You can’t select or search the text. To make them searchable, run the PDF through OCR PDF. Crooked scans can be straightened first with Deskew PDF.

Archive documents stay private

Medical records, legal files and faxes are exactly the documents that shouldn’t be sent to an online converter. Here the TIFF is decoded by your browser, and the PDF is built on your device and saved to your downloads.

A worked example: a 20-page fax

1. Add fax-2026-10-21.tif; the list shows one file.
2. Keep Actual size and Lossless.
3. Create the PDF: 20 pages at their original paper size, with the right proportions.
4. Shrink it for email with Compress PDF if needed.

For other image formats, see JPG to PDF and PNG to PDF.

Troubleshooting

• Pages look stretched or squashed: the file has unusual resolution tags. Choose A4 or US Letter instead of Actual size, which fits each page by its pixel proportions.
• Only the first page appears in other tools: many viewers show only page 1 of a TIFF; this converter reads all of them.
• Colors look inverted: some black-and-white TIFFs use an uncommon photometric setting. Save the file again from your scanner software and retry.