The short answer
You don't need an app. Your phone's web browser can do it, and our JPG to PDF page does all the work on the phone itself, so your photos are never uploaded. Here is the whole job:
- Open JPG to PDF in Safari on an iPhone, or in Chrome on Android.
- Tap Choose pictures and pick your photos from the gallery. You can pick many at once.
- Check the order. Each photo becomes a card with a number on it, and that number is its page number.
- Pick a page size. Leave Same as picture for reading on screens, or pick A4 for printing and online forms.
- Tap Convert to PDF, then Download. The PDF lands in your Downloads, ready to send.
The page is light, too: a first visit downloads about 0.1 MB, so it opens quickly even on slow mobile data. Once it has loaded, it keeps working with the internet switched off.
On iPhone: step by step in Safari
Use Safari on an iPhone or iPad. It is already on your phone, and it is the browser that can open iPhone photos saved as HEIC (more on that below).
- Open JPG to PDF in Safari. If you will use it often, tap Share and then Add to Home Screen, so it sits next to your apps.
- Tap Choose pictures. Your iPhone should show a short menu, usually with Photo Library, Take Photo and Choose File. Photo Library opens your gallery. Choose File opens the Files app, for pictures saved there or in iCloud Drive.
- Tap each photo you want, then tap Add (or Done) at the top. You can pick one photo or dozens.
- Wait for the cards. Each photo gets a card with a small preview, made one photo at a time. In our tests on a computer, with 12-megapixel photos, this took about 0.2 seconds a photo; a phone may take a little longer.
- Put them in order. Touch the numbered handle in the top-left corner of a card and drag it to its new place. Touching the rest of the card just scrolls the page, so you won't move cards by accident. The round arrow turns a photo a quarter turn, and the X removes it.
- Choose the options that suit your use (see which page size to pick), then tap Convert to PDF. With several photos, the button counts them, like "Convert 6 pictures to PDF".
- Tap Download. Safari may ask whether you want to download the file: tap Download. The PDF goes to the Downloads folder in the Files app.
If you prefer Chrome on your iPhone, the steps should be the same. If a card there shows a warning that the browser can't open HEIC photos, open the page in Safari instead.
On Android: step by step in Chrome
Chrome is on almost every Android phone. Samsung Internet or another up-to-date browser works the same way.
- Open JPG to PDF in Chrome.
- Tap Choose pictures. Depending on your phone and its Android version, your photos appear straight away, or you first get a choice of apps such as your gallery, Files and the camera. Pick the gallery for camera photos, or Files for pictures you downloaded or saved from a chat.
- Select several photos. In most galleries you simply tap each one. In some, you press and hold the first photo to start selecting, then tap the rest. Tap Done, Select or Add when you have them all.
- Check the cards. Drag a card by its numbered handle to move it, use the round arrow to turn a photo, and the X to remove one.
- Pick your options and tap Convert to PDF.
- Tap Download. Chrome saves the PDF to your Downloads folder and usually shows a short message with an Open button. You can also find it later in your Files app (Files by Google, or My Files on Samsung phones), under Downloads.
Photos from more than one place? Add the first batch, then tap Add more pictures for the next one. New pictures always go to the end, and you can drag them into place afterwards.
Motion photos. Some Android phones keep a short video inside the photo file. Only the picture itself goes into the PDF, so the video doesn't make your PDF bigger.
What happens to iPhone HEIC photos
iPhones save photos as HEIC by default. HEIC is a newer photo format that takes less space than JPG, but not every browser can open it, and a PDF can't hold it as it is. What happens depends on the browser:
| Where you open the page | What happens to a HEIC photo |
|---|---|
| Safari (iPhone, iPad or Mac) | Safari opens it, and it goes into the PDF as a high-quality JPG (88% quality). |
| Chrome, Edge or Firefox | Its card shows "This browser can't open HEIC photos. Use Safari, or save the photo as JPG first." It gets no page number and is left out. Your other pictures still convert. |
So you have three ways forward:
- Use Safari. This is the easiest. Nothing to change: your HEIC photos go in as high-quality JPGs, and the result tells you how many were stored this way.
- Take JPG photos from now on. Choose Settings > Camera > Formats > Most Compatible. This changes new photos only, so photos you already took stay HEIC. JPGs go into the PDF exactly as they are, at full quality, in any browser.
- Save the photo as JPG first, then add it again. This is the way out when HEIC photos have reached an Android phone or a Windows computer, where Chrome can't open them.
A size note for iPhone and iPad. Pictures the browser has to open, such as HEIC photos, are limited to 16 megapixels there, and bigger ones are scaled down to fit. That still leaves plenty of detail for a sharp A4 page. JPGs have no such limit, because they go in as they are.
Android phones can have HEIC photos too. A few Android phones offer a space-saving "high efficiency" or HEIF photo setting in the camera app. If your own Android photos show the HEIC warning in Chrome, look for that setting and turn it off for future photos.
Which page size to pick on a phone
The options appear as soon as you add photos. Whatever you pick, each photo is scaled to fit its page and centred, never cropped and never stretched. The quick way to decide is by where the PDF is going:
| The PDF is for | Page size | Margin |
|---|---|---|
| Reading on a phone, sent on WhatsApp or email | Same as picture | None |
| A job, exam, college or visa portal | A4, unless the portal asks for something else | Small |
| Printing | A4 (Letter in the USA and Canada) | Small |
| Printing to staple or file | A4 | Big |
Same as picture is the default. Each page takes the shape of its photo, 297 mm on its long side like A4, with no white border around it. On a phone screen that looks best, because no space is wasted. The catch is that pages come out in different shapes if your photos are different shapes.
A4 gives every page the same paper size. Most phone photos are a little shorter and wider in shape than an A4 sheet, so an upright photo on an A4 page usually has a band of white above and below it. That is normal: the photo is fitted, not cut.
Direction only matters with A4 or Letter. Leave it on Auto, and each page stands upright or lies sideways to suit its photo. Margin adds white space around each photo: Small is safer for printing, because many printers can't print right to the edge of the paper.
One PDF or a PDF each? Leave Make on One PDF to get a single file with every photo. Pick A PDF each when a form wants every document as its own file: you then get one ZIP file holding a PDF for each photo. Tap the ZIP in your Files app to open it.
The page size part of the guide has the exact sizes, and combining many pictures into one PDF goes deeper into margins and mixed upright and sideways photos.
Where your PDF is saved, and what it is called
On an iPhone or iPad, open the Files app, tap Browse and then Downloads. Depending on your settings, the Downloads folder is in iCloud Drive or On My iPhone.
On Android, open your Files app and go to Downloads. In Chrome you can also open the menu (the three dots) and tap Downloads.
The name comes from your first photo. One photo gives a PDF with the same name, like IMG_2041.pdf. Several give the first photo's name and the page count, like IMG_2041-12-pages.pdf. A PDF each gives a ZIP file named like jpg-to-pdf-12-files.zip.
Names like IMG_2041 say little to the person who receives them. To rename the file, press and hold it in your Files app and choose Rename. A name like "Anita-Rao-marksheets.pdf" is easier for an office to find later.
Lost the download? After a download, the button changes to Download again. As long as you stay on the page and don't change anything, tap it to save another copy.
Phone problems and quick fixes
- A card shows a warning. The browser can't open that picture. On a phone it is usually a HEIC photo outside Safari, or a damaged file. It is left out and the rest still convert. See HEIC photos above.
- A photo comes out sideways. Phones store a note saying which way they were held, and the converter follows it. When the note is missing or wrong, which happens easily with a phone held flat over a table, tap the round arrow on the card until the photo is upright, then convert again.
- The Convert button is grey. The cards are still loading, or every card has a warning. Wait a moment, or remove the cards that can't be used.
- The cards disappeared. Phones sometimes reload a page you switched away from, to free memory. Stay on the page until you have downloaded the PDF, and check your cards when you come back from another app.
- Nothing downloads. If you opened the link inside another app, such as a chat or social app, you may be in that app's built-in browser, which may not save files. Open the page in Safari or Chrome itself. Then look in Downloads, as shown above.
- A page looks blurry. The converter doesn't blur photos, so the photo itself was soft. Take it again in better light, holding the phone still.
- Very many photos on an older phone. We set no limit, but a phone has less memory than a computer. If it struggles, make two or three PDFs from smaller batches, then join them with Merge PDF.
Why use a browser page for this
Nothing to install. No app to download, no space used, no account and no watermark on your PDF.
Your photos stay on your phone. Photos of documents are often private: Aadhaar and PAN cards, marksheets, bank papers, medical reports. Most online PDF tools upload your files to their servers to convert them. Here, the converter runs inside your browser, and the site's security rules block the page from sending your data anywhere. You can check it yourself: once the page has loaded, turn on flight mode (Airplane Mode on iPhone) and convert. It still works.
Hidden notes are left out. Phone photos carry notes you can't see, often including the exact place where the photo was taken. These notes are left out of the PDF, and the result tells you when that happened. The privacy part of the guide explains what is removed.
Your photos keep their quality. JPG photos are copied into the PDF exactly as they are, without being compressed again, so small print stays as sharp as in the photo.
What your phone can already do. To be fair, phones have their own ways. On an iPhone, the Files app can make a PDF from pictures you select there (look for Create PDF in its menu), which is handy when the pictures are already in Files. On Android, many apps can print, and the print screen usually offers Save as PDF. Both work for a quick job. JPG to PDF adds a clear page order you can drag, a choice of A4, Letter or picture-sized pages with margins, HEIC handling in Safari, and a plain note of what happened to each photo's quality.
JPG to PDF, free and private: turn photos, scans and screenshots into one PDF, on A4 or at their own size.
Open JPG to PDF