Turn phone photos into a clean document PDF
Sending a medical receipt to an insurer, emailing a proof of employment, or submitting a copy of a contract often happens without a scanner nearby. Your phone camera can do the job. Bundling the photos into one PDF is easier for the recipient than a pile of image files, and most upload forms accept it.
1. Take good photos from the start
- Use bright, even light: a spot near a window works well. A flash tends to reflect off paper and wash out parts of the page.
- Shoot straight from above: shooting at an angle turns the page into a trapezoid. Hold the phone parallel to the paper.
- Use a dark background: white paper on a dark desk gives clear edges, which makes cropping easy later.
- Watch for shadows: make sure your hand and phone do not cast a shadow on the document.
2. Keep only what you need
If the desk or your fingers are in the shot, crop the photo to just the document. The document then appears larger in the PDF and the file gets smaller.
3. Bundle them into a PDF
Add all the photos to the Image to PDF tool at once and put them in order. These settings work well for most documents.
| Setting | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Page size | A4 or Letter | Prints at about the size of the original paper |
| Orientation | Auto | Wide documents get landscape pages |
| Margin | Narrow | Edges are not cut off when printed |
| Image quality | Normal | Sharp text with a reasonable file size |
HEIC photos from an iPhone work directly. The rotation stored in each photo is applied, so pages do not end up sideways.
4. Check the size and shrink if needed
Ten photos can easily make a PDF over 10MB. If it is above the upload limit, run it through PDF Compress in Strong mode. For documents, 110dpi at 60% quality is still easy to read.
5. Combine several documents into one file
If you need to send a PDF you already have together with the one you just made, combine them with Merge PDF. Put the cover page or application form first so the recipient can find it easily.
Protect your personal information
For sensitive documents such as IDs or bank statements, it is a good idea to hide any numbers the recipient does not need. All tools on this site run in your browser, so your photos and PDFs are never uploaded. When you are done, also clean up the document photos left in your phone gallery.