How to Make PDF of Photos on Mobile Without a Computer

To make a PDF of photos on a mobile phone, use a tool the phone already has. On an iPhone, the Preview app exports a picture as a PDF and inserts further pictures as pages. On Android, Chrome's print menu saves an image as a PDF. Both keep the photos you took, so nothing needs reshooting.

Can a phone make a PDF of photos without an app?

Yes, on both platforms, using apps the vendor supplies. Apple documents exporting an image to PDF and inserting more images as pages in Preview on iPhone. Google documents saving a print preview as a PDF from Chrome on Android. Neither needs an image to PDF converter app from a store.

"Without an app" really means "without installing one". The routes this post relies on, each from the vendor's own help pages:

What a photo PDF is

A PDF made this way is an envelope around pictures. Each page is one of your photos, with the desk, the shadows and the tilted edges that were in it. Nothing is straightened or cropped, and no text is added unless a tool says it does that and you turn it on. The reader gets one file with pages in a fixed order, which is the whole benefit.

When to rescan instead

If the paper is still in front of you, a scanning session gives a better file for the same effort, because a scanner app outlines each page and crops to it as you go. The procedure is in how to scan 2 documents into 1 PDF on a phone. Build a PDF from existing photos when the paper is gone, when a client took the pictures, or when the photos themselves are what you need to preserve.

When a computer is easier

Past a dozen or so pictures, a phone screen makes ordering and checking slow. If you can get the photos to a desktop, combining scanned images into one PDF on a computer gives you file names, sorting and a larger view.

Making a PDF from selected photos on an iPhone

Use the Preview app: export the first photo as a PDF, then insert each remaining photo into that PDF as a page. Apple documents both steps. Apple also documents printing selected photos from the Photos app, but only to an AirPrint printer, with no step for saving a PDF.

The Preview route

Two pages of Apple's iPhone User Guide supply the steps. The first covers exporting or compressing PDFs and images in Preview on iPhone, and the second covers adding, deleting, rotating and moving PDF pages in Preview. Put together:

1. If the photos are only in the photo library, save copies to a folder in the Files app so Preview can browse to them.
2. Open the Preview app and open the photo that should be page 1.
3. Tap the control next to the filename, tap Export, and select PDF as the file format.
4. Choose a location, name the file, and tap Save.
5. Open the new PDF. Tap the page count to show thumbnails.
6. Touch and hold a thumbnail and tap Insert from File, which Apple describes as "Insert a PDF or image". Pick the next photo.
7. Repeat for each remaining photo, in reading order.
8. Page through the finished file from first page to last.

Apple's guide is written for the current version of iOS. If your iPhone has no Preview app, this route is not available to you as written, and the Notes route is the documented alternative.

Export options worth knowing

When PDF is the chosen format, Apple lists several switches. Three matter for document photos:

• Embed Text. Apple's description is "Turn on to run OCR on images and make the PDF searchable." Whether the text it produces is good enough for your purpose is something to test on your own pages.
• Optimize Images for Screen. "Turn on to reduce image resolution for screen viewing. (This creates a smaller file.)" Leave it off for pages with small print, since resolution is what keeps small letters legible.
• Save Images as JPEG. "Turn on to save embedded images as JPEG for smaller file size."

The Notes route

Apple's guide to exporting or printing notes on iPhone says "You can create a PDF of a note, using the note's current view settings for its attachments." So a note that holds your photos in order can become a PDF. Read Apple's caution first: "In a note with a multipage PDF or scanned document, the exported PDF contains only the first page of the original PDF or scanned document." Check that every photo appears in the exported file at full size.

The print and share route

Apple's guide page on printing photos on iPhone documents the selection half: tap Select, then "Select each photo you want to print", tap the share button, then tap Print. What follows on that page is an AirPrint printer. It does not describe turning the print job into a PDF, so this post gives no steps for doing so. If the Print screen on your phone offers a way to share or save the job as a file, try it on two photos, open the result, and confirm both pages are there before you trust it with twenty.

Making a PDF from selected photos on an Android phone

Use the print menu. Google documents it for Chrome on Android: open the image, select Print, and tap Save as PDF where a printer would be chosen. The documentation covers one image at a time, so a multi-photo PDF needs a test on your own phone first.

The documented steps

Google's Chrome Help page on printing from an Android device gives the sequence. Google's first step is "Open the page, image, or file you want to print." You then select Print, and:

To save your print preview as a PDF, tap Save as PDF.

The step after that is "Choose where to save the PDF file on your device." The page also notes that you can change print settings from a drop-down arrow before saving. Paper size and orientation are the ones to look at, because they decide how the photo sits on the page.

Several photos in one file

Google's page does not say what happens when more than one image is involved, and the gallery apps on Android phones differ by maker. So treat the multi-photo case as something to establish for your own device:

1. In your gallery app, select two photos and look for Print in the share or overflow menu.
2. If Print appears, choose Save as PDF as the printer and save the file.
3. Open the PDF. Confirm it has two pages, in the order you expect, each showing the whole photo.
4. If that works, repeat with the full set.

If your gallery offers Print only for a single photo, you have two fallbacks that stay on the phone. One is to rescan the paper with Google Drive or Files by Google, which build a multi-page PDF as you go. The other is to make single-page PDFs and send them as a numbered set.

Check the print preview as well as the file

A print preview fits each photo to a sheet of paper. A photo with different proportions from the paper gets margins, and a preview set to the wrong orientation can shrink a tall page into the middle of a wide sheet. Before you save, look at the preview for each page. After you save, zoom in on the smallest print in the PDF and compare it with the same spot in the original photo. If the PDF is visibly softer, the print step reduced the picture, and you should send the original photos alongside it.

Why are the pages of a photo PDF out of order or sideways?

Pages fall out of order because the tool arranged the photos by something other than your intent, such as the time each was taken or the order you tapped them. Pages turn sideways when the tool ignores the rotation a photo displays with. Neither Apple's nor Google's pages state the ordering rule, so check every file.

Order

A set of photos has at least three possible orders: the order taken, the order selected, and the order the pages should be read in. They diverge the moment someone retakes page 4 after finishing page 9. The retake is the newest picture, so a tool that sorts by time puts it last.

Ways to keep control:

• Build the file one page at a time where the tool allows it, as Preview's Insert from File does. Slow, and the order is yours.
• Photograph the page number. If every page shows its printed number, any reader can verify the sequence, and so can you.
• Delete rejected shots first. Blurred attempts and duplicates in the selection are how a ten-page document becomes a thirteen-page PDF.
• Fix it afterwards. Apple's Preview guide documents moving a page by dragging its thumbnail "above or below another one", and Delete Page for removing one.

Sideways pages

A phone records which way up it was held, and the Photos app uses that note to show the picture upright. Shoot a page lying flat on a desk and the phone may guess wrong. The picture then looks right in one program and sideways in another. The mechanics are explained under why a document photo turns sideways after upload.

Two fixes, both documented by Apple for the iPhone:

• Before building the PDF, rotate the photo itself. Apple's guide to cropping, rotating and straightening photos on iPhone describes a Rotate control in the crop tools that turns the image 90 degrees.
• After building it, rotate the page. The Preview guide lists Rotate Left and Rotate Right for a PDF page.

On Android, rotate the photo in your gallery's editor before printing to PDF, then confirm in the saved file.

A page-through test

Open the finished PDF and go through it once with the paper, or the original photos, beside you. Say the page number of each as you pass it. Wrong order and sideways pages are both obvious at reading speed and both invisible in a thumbnail the size of a postage stamp.

How big is a PDF made from ten phone photos?

About as big as the ten photos added together, unless the tool reduces them on the way in. There is no single figure, because photo sizes vary with the camera, its settings and the page. Add up the sizes your phone reports for the photos, then compare the total with the size of the saved PDF.

Finding the numbers

On an iPhone, Apple's guide to opening and viewing PDFs and images in Preview says the information panel shows details "such as creation date, filename, size, and more". Use it on a photo and on the finished PDF. On Android, look for a details or file info entry in your gallery and files apps.

A worked example with made-up figures

Suppose a client, Renata Ilves, photographed a ten-page tenancy agreement, and her phone reports each picture at between 2.4 and 3.1 MB, 27 MB in all.

• A PDF that keeps the pictures as they are will be near 27 MB.
• A PDF of 6 MB from the same pictures means the tool reduced them. Zoom in on the smallest clause and decide whether it is still legible.
• A PDF of 60 MB means the tool re-encoded the pictures in a bulkier way. Nothing is lost, but the file may be too large to send.

Those figures are illustrations, not measurements. Yours come from your own phone.

Renata's tenancy agreement is a lease, so keep each original photograph after you build the PDF. The combined file is easier to read in order. The separate pictures stay available if the set becomes documentary evidence. Full-size frames make authentication easier when a clause looks soft, and the capture times sketch the chain of custody.

What the size has to fit

For the last row, the page ceilings are on the pricing page: up to 3 pages per document on Free, 250 on Solo and 1,000 on Team. The Ilves agreement at 27 MB is over the 20 MB limit as one file and under it as two five-page files, and ten pages is more than the Free plan takes in one document.

Making it smaller without ruining it

• Split the document at a sensible page, and name the parts in order.
• On an iPhone, re-export with Save Images as JPEG turned on. Apple says this gives a "smaller file size".
• Use Optimize Images for Screen only when the print is large, and check the result at full zoom.
• Do not shrink by sending the PDF through a messaging app that compresses attachments. You lose control of how much detail goes.

Photo PDF or separate pictures: which should you send?

Send a PDF when the recipient needs to read the pages in order as one document. Send the separate pictures when the recipient will convert, enlarge or examine them, or when the photos themselves matter as originals. If you are unsure, ask; if you cannot ask, send both.

What the PDF can lose

Three things. Resolution, if the tool reduced the pictures. The information recorded inside each photo file, such as when it was taken, which a PDF page does not carry in the same way. And the plain fact that these were photographs, which matters when someone later asks how the copy was made. None of that argues against the PDF. It argues for keeping the photos too.

A note for clients sending documents to a law firm

If your lawyer asked for "a PDF", make one and keep the pictures on your phone until the firm confirms the file is readable. If the firm asked for "photos", do not convert them. Guidance on taking the pictures in the first place is in how to photograph documents for your lawyer.

What happens to the file at the other end

A firm that receives a PDF of photos has page pictures, not text. To search, quote or edit, it has to run the file through OCR. Schema Law reads an uploaded PDF, PNG or JPEG into text and tables that you view page by page and export in the formats listed on the homepage. Phone photos vary from page to page, and nothing marks a passage as uncertain, so the output needs checking against the pictures. The full procedure, including uneven pages, is in converting a picture PDF to text.