Convert HEIC to PDF
Put iPhone HEIC photos, or pictures of documents taken with the iPhone camera, into one PDF on your own device. No upload, no app to install.
How to convert HEIC to PDF
- Tap the box above and pick the HEIC photos from your library or the Files app. You can add JPEG or PNG screenshots and scans to the same PDF.
- Wait while each photo opens; HEIC takes a little longer than JPG because it is decoded on your device.
- Check the order of the list and fix it with the arrows if a page is in the wrong place.
- Tap Create PDF, then Download PDF. On an iPhone the PDF lands in the Downloads folder of the Files app.
Why a HEIC photo needs a detour to become a PDF
An iPhone keeps its photos as HEIC, a format that stores a picture in noticeably less space than a JPEG of the same quality. PDF is older than HEIC and has no way to hold one, so every HEIC to PDF converter has to decode the photo and store it again in a form a PDF reader understands. Online converters usually do that on a server, which means your photos leave your phone. Here the decoding happens in your browser, with the libheif decoder that this site brings along, because Chrome and Firefox cannot open HEIC on their own.
My camera writes JPG, not HEIC, so for the numbers on this page I used the sample photo the libheif project publishes: a view of the river in Tübingen, 1280 × 854 px and 701.3 KB. I made each PDF on this page and read the sizes from the downloaded files.
What the sample photo gave
| Run | Page | |
|---|---|---|
| Sample photo, as this page starts: A4, automatic orientation, small margin | Landscape A4, 841.89 × 595.28 pt | 312.6 KB |
| The same photo stored on its side with a note to turn it | Portrait A4, 595.28 × 841.89 pt, picture upright | 314.2 KB |
| Sample photo, fit to image, no margin | 841.89 × 561.7 pt, the shape of the photo | 312.6 KB |
The PDF is less than half the size of the HEIC. The photo inside it is the full 1280 × 854 px, saved once as JPEG at 85% quality; the sample file also holds a second full-size image and two small previews, and only the main photo goes onto the page.
Photos taken sideways stay upright
When you hold an iPhone sideways, the camera often stores the picture as the sensor saw it and adds a note saying how far to turn it. A converter that skips the note gives you a PDF page lying on its side. I added such a note to a copy of the sample, a quarter turn, and the page came out as portrait A4 with the picture the right way up. The turn is applied while the photo is decoded, before the page is made.
Documents photographed with the camera
The Notes and Files apps on an iPhone have their own document scanner, and it saves a PDF directly. This page is for the other case: pictures of a contract, a payslip or a school worksheet that you already took with the Camera app and that now sit in your library as HEIC. Choose them together, put them in page order and set Orientation to Portrait so every sheet stands upright, even one you photographed a little wide.
Each page is a new JPEG made from the pixels alone, so the date, the phone model and the place a photo was taken stay behind in the HEIC and never reach the PDF. That matters when the document goes to an office or a stranger.
Tips for iPhone photos in a PDF
- Photograph documents flat, in daylight and from straight above; the PDF keeps every pixel, including a shadow or a tilt.
- Choose the photos in the order you want the pages, so the list needs fewer moves afterwards.
- Up to 20 photos fit in one PDF. For a longer document, make two PDFs and send both.
- If the PDF must stay under an email or upload limit, shrink the photos with the Image Resizer before you add them.
- Keep the HEIC originals in your library; the PDF does not carry the date and place of each photo.
Privacy
What you add here never leaves your device. The PDF is put together entirely in your browser, so nothing is uploaded or stored, and you do not need an account. HEIC photos are opened with a decoder that comes with this site and also runs in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert HEIC to PDF on an iPhone?
Open this page in Safari, tap the box and pick the photos. When the list is in order, tap Create PDF and then Download PDF. Safari saves the file to Downloads in the Files app by default, from where you can share or email it.
How do I convert HEIC to PDF on Windows?
Copy the HEIC photos to the computer, open this page in Chrome, Edge or Firefox and drop them on the box. Windows needs no extra codec for this, because the photos are decoded by the page itself.
Can I merge several HEIC photos into one PDF?
Yes. Choose up to 20 photos at once, put them in order with the arrows or by dragging the thumbnails, and every photo becomes one page of a single PDF. You can mix in JPG and PNG files too.
Should I convert HEIC to PDF or to JPG?
Choose PDF when several pictures belong together as one document, such as the pages of a form. Choose JPG when each photo should stay a separate picture, for posting or for a photo album.
How do I save a photo as a PDF in iPhone Notes?
In Notes you can put the photo into a note and save that note as a PDF from the print or share options, with the layout of the note. Here you choose A4 or Letter, the margin and the order of several photos.
Related tools and guides
- JPG to PDF Converter: Combine JPG, PNG, HEIC and other images into one PDF in your browser.
- Combine Images into One PDF: Several photos of forms, receipts or homework sheets become one tidy PDF with upright A4 pages, in the order you set. Nothing is uploaded.
- Convert HEIC to JPG: Turn iPhone HEIC photos into JPG files that every app, form and computer opens, and see what happens to size, rotation and photo details. No upload.
- Image Resizer: Resize images by pixels, percentage or longest side.
- Image Compressor: Reduce JPEG, PNG and WebP file sizes while keeping quality high.
- I Built the Tools I Kept Looking For as a Photographer: Why the photos you turn into a PDF here are never sent to a server.