How to combine phone photos and receipts into one PDF
Published:
Expense claims, applications and insurance forms often ask for several photos as a single PDF. Dropped in as-is, photos tend to come out sideways or in random sizes — a few simple steps avoid that.
Step 1: Take good photos
Getting the photo right saves fixing it later:
- Place the document on a dark surface so its edges stand out.
- Avoid shadows — don’t stand between the light and the page.
- Fill the frame and shoot straight down from above.
- Take multi-page documents in order so the file names follow the page order.
Step 2: Combine them into a PDF
Open the JPG to PDF converter (or PNG to PDF for screenshots).
- Select all the photos and drop them onto the converter.
- Use the up and down arrows to arrange them — the order shown is the page order.
- Optionally choose a page size under Options.
- Click Convert and download the PDF.
Photos are processed in your browser and never uploaded, which matters when they show ID cards, medical bills or bank details.
Why photos end up sideways
Phones usually don’t rotate the image itself. They store it as the sensor captured it and add an orientation tag (EXIF) saying “rotate this 90° for display”. Photo apps honour the tag; some PDF tools ignore it, which is why pages come out sideways.
This converter reads the orientation tag and places each photo upright in the PDF. A receipt photographed in portrait gets a portrait page.
Choosing a page size
| Option | Result | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Same as image (default) | Each page matches its photo | Viewing on screen or emailing |
| A4 | Every page is A4, photos centred | Printing, or the recipient asks for A4 |
| US Letter | US standard paper | Submitting to US organisations |
With A4 or Letter, wide photos automatically get landscape pages. Choose Margin → Small margin so nothing is cut off when printing.
Quality and file size
JPG photos are placed in the PDF without re-compression, so there is no quality loss. Modern phone photos are several megabytes each, though, so a long series can make a big PDF. If the recipient has a size limit, take photos at a lower resolution or use your phone’s option to share photos at a smaller size before converting.
Already have several PDFs?
If your scanning app produced several PDFs, combine them with Merge PDF. To turn a PDF page back into a photo, use PDF to JPG.
Summary
Shoot straight on a dark background, arrange the order in the converter, and pick A4 or Letter for printing. Orientation is corrected for you.