Turning photos and scans into a clean, searchable PDF
Image to PDF puts one or many pictures into a single document you can print, email or submit. It keeps your photos sharp and can add an invisible text layer with OCR, so the text in a scan can be selected, copied and searched.
Common uses
Submitting documents online
Combine the front and back of an ID, an address proof or a certificate into one file, in the order the portal expects.
Scanning with a phone
Photograph each page of a contract, bill or notebook, then merge them into one document in reading order.
Students and teachers
Turn handwritten notes or whiteboard photos into a single PDF to share or print, with 2, 4 or 6 pictures per page for revision sheets.
Receipts and expenses
Collect a month of receipts into one PDF and make it searchable so you can find a vendor or an amount later.
Portfolios and mock-ups
Place artwork or screenshots on clean pages with a consistent paper size and optional borders.
Regional-language documents
Choose the OCR language, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi and Urdu, for accurate recognition.
Keeping the picture sharp
JPEG photos are embedded exactly as they are, without being recompressed, and PNG and TIFF are stored losslessly. The PDF looks like your picture, not a degraded copy.
What OCR does
Optical character recognition reads the words in the picture and places them invisibly beneath it. Nothing looks different, but you can search the PDF, copy text from it and use it with screen readers. A plain-text copy can also be downloaded.
Layout and paper
Choose one image per page or 2, 4, 6, 8 or 16 per sheet, A4, US Letter and other sizes, automatic paper, and optional borders. Drag thumbnails to reorder before you create the file.
Phone and scanner quirks
iPhone HEIC photos, rotated phone pictures, transparent PNGs and multi-page TIFF scans are handled; each TIFF frame becomes a page.
Making the PDF smaller
Tick the reduce option and the result is shrunk further for email or upload limits while keeping the searchable text.
Privacy
No sign-up. Pictures and the finished PDF are deleted two minutes after your download has finished (a result nobody downloads is removed after 30 minutes).
Troubleshooting
OCR missed some words
Use a straight, well-lit photo, pick the right language, and avoid heavy shadows. Handwriting is recognised less reliably than print.
Pages are in the wrong order
Drag the thumbnails before pressing the button; the order shown is the order of pages.
The PDF is too big
Use the reduce option or lower the picture resolution first with the File Size Reducer.
Available in 55 languages
The whole site - menus, buttons, guides and messages - can be switched to 55 languages, including English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia, Assamese, Nepali, Urdu, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Use the language menu in the top bar; your choice is remembered, and the file formats and tools work exactly the same in every language.
Text recognition in 30 languages
When you keep "Make the text selectable" switched on, Image to PDF reads the words in your pictures and hides them under the image, so the PDF can be searched, selected and copied. Pick the language the document is written in and recognition becomes far more accurate, because each language has its own alphabet, word shapes and spelling rules. Wrong language is the number-one reason for garbled OCR, so this one choice matters.
Indian languages
- Hindi
- Bengali
- Tamil
- Telugu
- Marathi
- Gujarati
- Kannada
- Malayalam
- Punjabi
- Odia
- Urdu
- Assamese
- Nepali
- Sanskrit
European languages
- English
- Spanish
- French
- German
- Portuguese
- Italian
- Russian
- Turkish
Middle East and Asia
- Arabic
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- Japanese
- Korean
- Thai
- Vietnamese
- Indonesian
Why this matters
Mixed documents work
English is always read together with the language you choose, so a Hindi form with English names, numbers and email addresses is recognised correctly in one pass.
Your picture never changes
The text sits invisibly behind the original photo. The page looks exactly as you scanned it; only the behaviour changes - you can search with Ctrl+F, select words and copy them.
Copy to Word, WhatsApp or a form
Select text from the finished PDF, or download the plain-text file and paste it anywhere, including Hindi, Tamil and other scripts.
Great for official papers
Ration cards, certificates, marksheets, invoices, bank statements and government letters become searchable archives you can find again in seconds.
Tips for the best accuracy
Photograph the page flat and in even light, fill the frame, keep the text horizontal and avoid shadows. Printed text is read very well; neat handwriting is read less reliably.
Frequently asked questions
Is the text in the PDF really editable?
The text is real, selectable text: you can copy it, search it, highlight it and paste it into Word, Google Docs or an email, where you can edit it freely. The pictures remain pictures, so they can be copied or extracted from the PDF in any viewer. Recognition is automatic, so proofread important documents.
Which image formats can I add?
JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC and HEIF from iPhones, AVIF, BMP, GIF and TIFF (including multi-page TIFF). Camera RAW files should be converted to JPG first with the Image Converter.
Will my pictures lose quality?
No. JPEG photos are embedded byte for byte, lossless formats are stored losslessly, and other formats are encoded once at a high quality setting. Pages are scaled geometrically, never blurred.
How many images can I add?
As many as you like, up to 200 MB in total for one PDF.
Does it read Hindi, Tamil or other Indian languages?
Yes. You do not have to choose a language: the tool detects it from your picture. Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, European languages and pages that mix them are all supported. Text recognition reads the words as written and never translates them.
Are my pictures kept?
No. We do not store your files - the PDF is created and returned to you, and we never view or share them.
More questions →