HEICtoPDF
Convert HEIC to PDF
Up to 3 files at once, 100 with Pro. Mixed formats are fine.
Converting HEIC to PDF turns an iPhone photograph of a document into the file an upload form is usually missing. The HEIC is decoded and stored inside the PDF as a high-quality JPEG, all of it inside your browser — the file never leaves your device, which for a passport page or a bank statement is the point.
Photographing paperwork with the phone in your pocket
This conversion is almost never about photography. It is about paperwork. Somebody has asked for a signed form, a utility bill, a passport page, a receipt for an expenses claim — and the practical way to produce one is to photograph it. Then the upload form says PDF only, and you are holding a HEIC, which is both the wrong container and a format the form has probably never heard of.
What happens to the picture on the way in
Two things, and both happen here. The HEIC is decoded, because a PDF cannot carry HEIC data — that codec is an Apple-era format and PDF predates it by decades. The resulting picture is then stored inside a PDF as a JPEG at a high quality setting.
That is one compression step, and on a photograph of a printed page it is not something you can see. The words stay as legible as your camera made them.
Fit-to-image or A4: which page size to choose
It depends entirely on where the file is going. Leave it at fit-to-image and the PDF page is exactly the shape of your photograph — no border, nothing scaled, which is what an upload form wants and what keeps the file small.
Choose A4 or Letter and the image is centred on a real sheet with a margin, which is what you want if a human is going to print it and put it in a folder. The image is scaled down to fit if it is too large and never scaled up, so a photograph never gets stretched into blurriness.
The text in the photo stays a picture
This is the limitation to know before you rely on it. A photograph of a contract is a picture of a contract, and the PDF contains that picture. You cannot select the words, search them, or copy a paragraph out, and a system that specifically requires a machine-readable document will reject it however good the photograph is.
Reading words out of an image is OCR, a genuinely different piece of software and not part of this. Where the document also exists as a file — a bank statement you can download as a PDF, a form you can fill in on screen — that version is always better than a photograph of the printed one.
Multi-page documents, and where your files go
Each photo becomes its own PDF, so a three-page contract comes back as three files. Merging them into one document is a PDF tool rather than a format conversion and is not built yet. Drop the whole set and take them as a ZIP for now.
All of this runs in your browser: the HEIC decoder is downloaded to your machine and the photograph never moves. Given that the files people convert on this page are passports, bank statements and signed contracts, that is not a feature so much as the only defensible way to build it.
How to turn an iPhone photo into a PDF
- Drop your HEIC onto this page, or click to choose it.
- It decodes and becomes a PDF in your browser, with no upload.
- Download it — or set a page size first if it is going to be printed.
HEIC vs PDF: a phone photo in a document wrapper
| HEIC | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | High Efficiency Image Container | Portable Document Format |
| File extension | .heic | |
| Media type | image/heic | application/pdf |
| Compression | Lossy — file size is bought with quality | Either, depending on the setting |
- Quality
- Nothing is lost. The result holds exactly the same picture, text or data as the original.
- Where it runs
- This conversion runs inside your browser. Your file is never uploaded, and it works with the network disconnected.
HEIC to PDF: quality, pages and privacy
- Are my HEIC files uploaded anywhere?
- No. This conversion runs entirely inside your browser, so the file never leaves your device. You can confirm it yourself: open the network tab of your browser's developer tools and watch that nothing is sent while the file converts.
- Is the photo re-compressed on the way in?
- Once. The HEIC has to be decoded, because a PDF cannot hold HEIC data, and the picture is stored inside the PDF as a JPEG. That is one compression step, at a high setting, and it is not visible on a photographed document.
- Can I put several pages in one PDF?
- Not yet. Each photo becomes its own PDF, so a three-page contract gives you three files. Merging them is a PDF tool rather than a conversion and is on the list.
- Will the text in the photo be searchable?
- No. It is a photograph of words, not words, and this conversion does not read it. A form that specifically demands machine-readable text will still reject it — for that you need the original document rather than a picture of it.
- What page size should I choose?
- Leave it at fit-to-image if the PDF is being uploaded, which keeps the photograph exactly as it is. Choose A4 or Letter if somebody is going to print it, and the image is centred on a real sheet with a margin.
- Is my document uploaded anywhere?
- No. Both the HEIC decoding and the PDF writing happen inside your browser. For a photographed passport or bank statement, that is the only sensible arrangement.