Converting files
Why did my JPG to PDF come out sideways, blurry or too big?
Sideways pages come from phone orientation data, blur comes from the photo itself rather than the conversion, and a huge file means large photos. Use a converter that applies the phone's orientation, check the photo before converting, and compress the finished PDF if it is too big to send.
You took photos of a form, a receipt or a few pages of notes, turned them into a PDF, and something is off. One page lies on its side. The text looks soft. Or the file is 40 MB and the upload box says no.
Each of those has a single, specific cause. Once you know it, the fix takes seconds.
Pages that come out sideways
A phone camera sensor always captures the picture the same way round. When you hold the phone upright, the phone does not turn the pixels; it writes a small note into the file that says "show this rotated 90 degrees". Your gallery app reads that note, so the photo looks right on the phone.
A converter that ignores the note places the raw pixels on the page, and the page comes out lying on its side. That is the whole story behind most sideways photo PDFs.
JPG to PDF reads that note and turns the picture upright before it is placed, so a photo that looks right in your gallery looks right in the PDF.
If a page is still wrong, the photo itself was taken at an angle, for example with the phone flat on a desk, where it cannot tell which way is up. Rotate it in your gallery app first, or fix the page afterwards with Rotate PDF.
Pages that look blurry
It is tempting to blame the conversion. With JPG to PDF, the JPG goes into the PDF exactly as it is. It is not compressed again and not resized, so the page in the PDF is the photo you added, pixel for pixel.
So when a page looks soft, zoom into the original photo on your phone. You will almost always see the same softness there. The usual causes:
- Movement. A slightly shaky hand in dim light. Brace your elbows on the table, or tap to focus and wait a moment before pressing the button.
- Focus on the wrong thing. The camera focused on the background, not the paper. Tap on the text before you shoot.
- Distance. Photographing a full page from far away, then zooming in. Move closer so the page fills the frame.
- A screenshot of a photo. Sending a picture through a chat app often shrinks it. Use the original from your camera roll.
Retaking one photo is quicker than trying to rescue it. If the page is a scan that came out grey or speckled, Enhance Scan can lift the contrast and clean the background.
A PDF that is far too big
Because the photos go in unchanged, the PDF is roughly the size of the photos added together. Modern phones take photos of 3 to 8 MB each. Ten of them make a 30 to 80 MB PDF, which is more than most email and upload forms accept.
You have two good options:
- Compress the finished PDF. Run it through Compress PDF. The Recommended level makes photo pages much smaller while keeping text readable on screen and on paper.
- Send fewer, better pages. If three photos show the same page, keep the sharpest one.
Avoid shrinking each photo by hand in an editing app first. It takes longer and the result is usually worse than compressing the PDF once at the end.
Page size: the choice that changes how it looks
A phone photo is usually 3:4. An A4 page is taller and narrower. Put one on the other and there will be white space above and below the picture. That is expected, not a fault.
- A4 or Letter when the PDF will be printed or filed with other documents. The whole photo stays on the page.
- Match the image when the PDF will be read on a screen. Each page takes the shape of its photo, with no margin, a small one or a wide one, as you choose.
There is also a Fill the page option. It enlarges the photo until it covers the whole page, edge to edge, and trims whatever does not fit; the picture is never stretched or squashed. Use it for a borderless, photo-album look, and keep Fit the whole image when nothing at the edges may be cut off, such as the corners of a form or a receipt.
A quick checklist before you convert
- Open each photo once on the phone. If it looks right there, it will look right in the PDF.
- Put them in order. Up to 30 go into one PDF.
- iPhone photos in HEIC format can go in as they are, mixed with JPGs. HEIC to PDF is the same tool for a set of iPhone photos.
- JPGs and PNGs are made into the PDF on your device and never uploaded. A set that includes a HEIC photo is the exception: most browsers cannot open HEIC, so that set is converted on our server.
- After converting, compress the PDF if it is going by email.
Common questions
Does converting JPG to PDF reduce quality?
Not with JPG to PDF. The JPG is placed in the PDF as it is, without being compressed again, so the page is exactly the photo you added.
Why is one page in my PDF upside down or sideways?
The photo was taken with the phone flat or tilted, so the phone could not record which way was up. Rotate it in your gallery before converting, or turn the page afterwards with Rotate PDF.
How many photos can go into one PDF?
Up to 30 at a time. For more, make two PDFs and join them with Merge PDF.