JPG photos and scans as one PDF
Each JPG becomes one page of the PDF, in the order of the list. Add the pictures, drag them into order (or click Sort by name for files numbered by a camera or scanner) and click Merge.
The JPEG data is copied into the PDF as it is, without being decoded and compressed again, so the PDF looks exactly like the photos and is only slightly larger than they are together. No sharpness is lost to a second round of compression.
Page size
- Same as the picture (the default): a scan that records its resolution keeps its paper size, so a 300 dpi scan of an A4 letter prints as A4 again. Photos, which don't carry a meaningful resolution, get a page about the size of a sheet of A4.
- A4 or US Letter: every photo is centred on a page of that size, on a landscape page when the photo is wide, and shrunk to fit if needed. Tick the margin option for a 1 cm white border, which keeps the edges of the photo clear of a printer's unprintable edge.
Sideways photos
Phones store many photos sideways with a note saying how to turn them. That note is followed: the page is turned in the PDF, so the photo shows upright while its JPEG data stays untouched. Mirrored photos and CMYK, 12-bit or arithmetic-coded JPEGs are decoded and stored without loss instead.
Mixing JPGs with other files
The same list takes PNG and HEIC pictures, PDFs and Word documents, so a photo of a receipt can go straight after the form it belongs to. A JPG that was cut off during a download is left out with a note rather than turned into a half-grey page.
More about what this tool reads and writes: Merge PDF.