How to Save a Photo as a PDF on Your iPhone for Free

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By Emma Chase
March 25, 2024

What to Know

  • Avoid using paid third-party apps to convert iPhone photos to PDFs.
  • You can easily save images as PDFs using the free Apple Photos app.
  • This allows you to group pictures to create digital photo albums or file an insurance claim while keeping image metadata private.

Images on your iPhone are usually saved as JPGs or PNGs, which work well for most uses. However, sometimes it's much easier to send a PDF image than to upload the original file type, especially when you want to keep things like image location and other metadata private. Here's how to save a picture as a PDF on your iPhone.

How to Convert Pictures to PDF on Your iPhone (without 3rd-Party Apps!)

Since PDFs are a universal file type, saving an image to PDF is a simple way to ensure your file is safe and can be read by any phone or computer without an error. To learn more about your iPhone Photos app features, sign up for our free Tip of the Day Newsletter. Now, here's how to use Photos to create a PDF on an iPhone.

  1. Open the Photos app and tap Select. Tap Select.
  2. Tap at least one image you want to save in a PDF file. A blue check icon will appear in the corner to indicate selected photos. Select photos.
  3. Tap the Share icon. Tap the Share icon from Photos.
  4. Scroll down and tap Print. Do not tap Save to Files now. This will not convert your image to a PDF. Tap Print to convert the photo to a PDF.
  5. On the Print Options screen, tap the Share icon in the upper right. Tap the Share icon from the Print options screen.
  6. Scroll down and tap Save to Files. This will save your images as a PDF file, with one image on each page of the PDF. Tap Save to Files.
  7. The file picker interface will open. Tap a folder to navigate to where you'd like to save the PDF on your iPhone. Tap a Files app folder.
  8. You can tap "Photo" at the bottom to change the name of the file. When you're finished, tap Save. Tap Save.

Now, you can use this trick to turn any picture into a PDF on your iPhone! To locate your newly saved PDF, open the Files app on your iPhone and navigate to the folder you saved your PDF to. Tap the PDF file to open it in a simple PDF viewer and review your photos. If you need to edit the document containing your images, check out how to edit PDFs on your iPhone.

FAQ

  • Why convert a photo to a PDF on your iPhone? A PDF (Portable Document Format) is easy to share and open across different devices and operating systems while keeping the same formatting and resolution.
  • What other iPhone photo file types can I convert to PDF format? You can convert JPG, PNG, TIFF, PSD, and JPEG file types to PDFs on your iPhone.
  • How do I create a PDF from multiple images on my iPhone? To create a PDF with multiple images, open the Photos app on your iPhone, select the images you want to save as a single PDF file, tap the Share icon, and follow the steps above.
  • How do I save an email as a PDF for free on my iPhone? You can use similar steps to save emails as PDFs on your iPhone. While this article explains how to save an email to the Books app, you can save the PDF with your other documents by selecting the Files app instead.
  • How do I save a Safari page as a PDF on my iPhone? You can save a web page as a PDF on your iPhone by entering Reader Mode to hide the ads, then saving the web page in your Books app for later reading.
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Emma Chase

Emma Chase is a freelance writer for iPhone Life. She has her Bachelors degree in Communication from the University of Northern Iowa. Emma has worked in many sectors in her professional career, including the higher education, finance, and nonprofit. Emma lives in small-town Iowa with her husband and two children. When she’s not geeking out over the newest Apple product or wrangling her kids, Emma enjoys a good book, crocheting, and trying new foods.

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