What you see, and where to look
Most problems are one of a few causes. JPG to PDF copies a JPG into the PDF exactly as it is, so it never makes a photo worse. When a page looks wrong, the cause is in the photo, in one setting, or in what your browser can open. Find your problem:
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| A card shows a warning, or a photo is missing | The browser can't open that picture | Missing photos |
| A photo is sideways or upside down | The note about how the phone was held is missing | Sideways |
| A page looks blurry or soft | The photo itself was soft or small | Blurry |
| The PDF is far too big | Photos go in untouched, so it is as big as they are | Too big |
| White space around the pictures, or tiny pictures | Page size, direction or margin | Page shape |
| Pages are in the wrong order | The cards were in another order | Order |
| A band of grey or white at the bottom | The photo file was cut short | Damaged photo |
A card shows a warning, or a photo is missing
A warning on a card means the browser couldn't open that picture. The card is left out, so it has no page number, and the other pictures still convert. The usual causes:
- An iPhone HEIC photo in Chrome, Edge or Firefox. iPhones save photos as HEIC by default. Safari can open HEIC, but Chrome, Edge and Firefox can't. Two ways round it: open this page in Safari, where HEIC photos go into the PDF as high-quality JPGs, or set your iPhone to take JPGs: Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible. The photos you already took stay HEIC, so for those use Safari. See Convert photos to PDF on iPhone and Android.
- A TIFF outside Safari. TIFF is the same: it only works in browsers that can open it, such as Safari.
- A damaged file. If a photo is broken, save it again from where it came from.
- A picture you can't see in the result. If one can't be read while the PDF is made, the result names it and the PDF is made from the rest. Try saving that picture again as JPG, then add it.
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP and AVIF all open in current browsers. A photo format that a PDF can't hold, like a lossy WebP, becomes a JPG at 88% quality. In our tests, a 12-megapixel WebP photo of 1.95 MB became a PDF of 3.04 MB for that reason: the JPG was larger than the WebP.
A photo is sideways or upside down
Many phones save a photo as the camera saw it, with a note inside the file that says which way the phone was held. The converter follows that note, so your photos come out upright. We tested photos with each of the 8 orientation notes a camera can write, and every page matched its picture.
A photo can still come out sideways when the note is missing. An app the photo passed through, such as one that makes pictures smaller for sharing, may have removed it. The fix is quick:
- Press the turn button on the photo's card, a round arrow in its top-right corner. Each press turns it a quarter turn to the right, 90° clockwise.
- Press it until the picture stands upright. Turning doesn't compress the picture again.
- Press Convert again. The Convert button comes back whenever you change the order, a turn or an option.
If you've already made the PDF, you can turn single pages with Rotate PDF. The post Fix a sideways or upside-down scanned PDF shows how.
A page looks blurry or soft
The converter doesn't blur JPGs. Your photo goes into the PDF exactly as it is, so the page can't be softer than the photo. When a page looks blurry, one of these is true:
- The photo was soft to begin with. A shaky hand, bad focus or low light makes a soft photo. Take it again, closer and in better light.
- It was a small picture. Small pictures are enlarged to fill the page and can't gain detail. A photo that has passed through a chat app may have been made smaller on the way.
- The PDF was shrunk afterwards. If you put the PDF through a compressor, the pictures may have lost sharpness. Convert again from the original photos.
Photos of documents come out better with a few habits, which come from the tool page:
- Use plenty of soft light, like daylight near a window. Skip the flash, which leaves a bright patch on the paper.
- Lay the page flat on a plain, dark surface, so its edges stand out.
- Hold the phone straight above the page, not at an angle, so the lines stay straight.
- Fill the frame with the page, tap the screen on the text to focus, and keep your shadow and fingers off the page.
Zoom in on names, dates and numbers in the PDF before you send it. For more on sharpness, read Compressed PDF blurry or hard to read?
The PDF is far too big
JPGs and simple PNGs go in as they are, so the PDF is about as big as your pictures together, and a PDF adds very little. In our tests, 20 photos of 12 megapixels each, 62.4 MB in all, made a PDF of 62.4 MB in under 0.1 seconds, and the same photos on A4 pages with a Small margin made a PDF of the same size. A phone photo is usually far bigger than the 100 KB many forms ask for. The size is the price of keeping the full quality.
To make it smaller, in order of how much sharpness each costs:
- Add fewer photos. Take out retakes and photos of blank backs. All pages share one limit.
- Use the PDF compressor for email or sharing. Recommended keeps pictures at 150 ppi, which looks sharp on screens.
- For an exact limit, use Resize PDF, which makes the sharpest version that fits, or go straight to Compress PDF to 100 KB or 200 KB. Your photos went in at full quality, so these have all their detail to work with.
- Keep the full-quality PDF. If another form wants a different size, start again from it, or from the photos.
The post Photo to PDF under 100 KB for online forms shows a whole example.
White space, tiny pictures and odd page shapes
Whatever you pick, each picture is scaled to fit inside the margins and centred on its page. It is never cropped and never stretched. What changes is the page:
| If you see... | Try |
|---|---|
| White space around every picture | You picked A4 or Letter, or a margin. Choose Same as picture with margin None, for reading on screens. |
| A wide photo is small on an upright page | With A4 or Letter, set Direction to Auto, which gives each page its own direction, or choose Landscape |
| The picture touches the edge when printed | Choose a Small margin (about 7 mm), because many printers can't print right to the edge |
| No room to punch holes or staple | Choose a Big margin (about 18 mm) |
| Pages are different shapes | That's Same as picture. Pick A4 to give every page the same size |
A4 is the usual paper size in India. For printing, pick A4 and a Small margin. For reading on screens, Same as picture is the default. A4 vs Letter explains the two paper sizes.
Wrong order, or a band at the bottom of a page
Pages in the wrong order
The number on each card is its page number. New pictures go to the end. Drag a card to move it: with a mouse, from anywhere on the card; with a finger, by the numbered handle in its top-left corner; with a keyboard, Tab to the handle and use the arrow keys, or Home and End. If you notice later, change the cards and press Convert again.
A grey or white band, or "the result says a picture was damaged"
The photo file stops before its end. This happens when copying or sending it was cut short, for example when a download was interrupted. What could be read of it was stored again as a high-quality JPG, and the missing part may show as a plain grey or white band. Copy or download the photo again from where it came from, then convert again.
A one-minute check before you send the PDF
- Look at every card: upright, in order, and with no warning.
- Read the result line, which says in plain words what happened, such as "Every picture went in exactly as it was, at full quality."
- Open the PDF and zoom in on names, dates and numbers.
- Check the size against any limit, and shrink last.
- Keep your photos until the form is accepted.
Hidden notes in your photos, such as the camera's make and model, the date and the GPS location, are left out of the PDF, and the result tells you when it removed them.
Your photos stay on your device
Photos of documents are often private: ID cards, certificates, bank papers. JPG to PDF has no upload step and never sends your pictures anywhere: your own browser puts them into the PDF. The page contacts only this site and Google's ad service, which shows the ads that keep the tools free, and our code never gives your files to the ad code. The privacy policy has the details.
Try it: choose your photos, check the cards and press Convert.
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