Convert HEIC photos to PDF online, for free

Convert HEIC photos to PDF, step by step

Converting a HEIC photo to PDF is often the fastest way to get a photo taken with an iPhone accepted: a proof document, an ID card, a photographed invoice or a hand-signed document. The tool on this page works in a recent browser, on a computer, tablet or phone, with no app to install and no account to create. Here is the full process.

1. Gather your .heic photos on the device that will do the conversion: directly on the iPhone, or copied to the computer by cable, through a messaging app or from your storage service.
2. Select them all at once, in the order you want, then drop them into the reader at the top of this page. You can add JPG, PNG, WebP or TIFF files to them.
3. With the first HEIC photo, the decoder downloads (about 2 MB), only once: later conversions reuse it.
4. Each photo becomes a page of the PDF, in the order of the selection. Scroll through the document in the reader to check that all the pages are there and legible.
5. Save the PDF. If it is too heavy for the form you intend it for, compress it before saving.

As long as you have not saved, operations done in the reader can be reversed with the Undo button: you can safely try a page order or a compression setting.

What is a HEIC file, and why convert it to PDF

HEIC, or HEIF, is the default photo format of the iPhone and iPad when the Camera > Formats setting is on “High Efficiency”. Its benefit is real: at equal quality, a HEIC photo weighs about half as much as a JPEG, which saves space on the phone and in cloud storage.

Its drawback shows up as soon as the photo leaves the Apple ecosystem. Windows does not open it without installing an extension, most desktop browsers do not display it (only Safari reads it), and many government forms simply reject it. A PDF, on the other hand, opens everywhere and remains the expected format for an application file.

A PDF has another advantage: several photos fit in a single file. The front and back of an ID card, the three pages of a photographed lease or a series of receipts form a single document, in the right order, instead of a string of attachments that are hard to follow.

Convert several HEIC photos into a single PDF

Batch conversion is the most common case: you photographed a multi-page document and want a single file. Select all the photos at the same time: each one becomes a page, in the order of the selection.

• You can mix formats: a HEIC photo from the iPhone, a PNG screenshot and a JPEG received by email end up in the same PDF.
• A HEIC file containing several images, such as a burst, gives one page per image.
• The .heic and .heif extensions are recognized, as are AVIF images.
• If the order is wrong, there is no need to start over: rearrange the PDF's pages by drag and drop while seeing the thumbnails.

A photo taken at an angle or upside down is just as easy to straighten: rotating a PDF page and saving its orientation fixes the orientation in the file itself, not just on screen. And if a blurry photo slipped into the batch, you can remove it by typing its page number.

PDF file size: why it grows, and how to reduce it

This is the question that surprises people most: lightweight HEIC photos produce a noticeably heavier PDF. The explanation is simple. Each photo is embedded at its full resolution, re-encoded as JPEG, on a page with the exact dimensions of the photo. Since JPEG is less efficient than HEIC, the size goes up.

This choice guarantees that nothing is lost: a passport number, a small line in a contract or a code at the bottom of an invoice stays legible when zoomed in. But many online forms limit the size of attachments.

The solution is to reduce the PDF's size for an online form right after the conversion, on the same document. Then check that the important areas are still legible when zoomed in before sending.

Another option if you only need part of a photo: crop it in the iPhone's Photos app before converting it. A photo cropped to the document alone weighs less and reads better than one where the table and the wall take up half the picture.

Convert HEIC photos to PDF from an iPhone or from Windows

From an iPhone or iPad

Open this page in Safari and choose your photos from the photo library. When you pick them, Safari often converts the photos to JPEG before handing them to the page: that is not a problem, the resulting PDF is the same. The file is then saved in the Files app, from which you can attach it to an email or upload it to a website.

From a Windows computer

This is where HEIC causes the most trouble, since Windows does not open it without an extension. You have nothing to install here: drop the .heic files as they are into the reader, and the tool decodes them itself in the browser. If you convert often, the free PDF reader for Windows 11 offers the same tools offline, and is also available for Linux.

From an Android phone

If HEIC photos were sent to you from an iPhone, the conversion works the same way in a recent browser on Android: choose the files, wait for decoding to finish, save the PDF.

Why convert your photos without uploading them

The photos people convert to PDF are rarely trivial: an ID card, a tax notice, a prescription, a payslip, a proof of address. Sending them to an unknown converter's server means handing them over without knowing where they will be stored or for how long.

With Certyneo Reader, nothing leaves your device. HEIC decoding relies on libheif, the format's reference library, compiled to WebAssembly to run in the browser. It is downloaded only when you convert a HEIC photo, then reused. Your photos are never sent to a server: Certyneo neither receives nor stores them. The tool is free, with no account, no added watermark and no limit on the number of conversions, up to 150 MB per file.

If a HEIC file is damaged, for example after an interrupted transfer, a clear error message appears and no PDF is produced. Copy the photo again from the iPhone and restart the conversion.

After the HEIC to PDF conversion: complete and secure the file

The PDF stays open in the reader, and the tools can be chained on the same document. A few useful sequences for an administrative or business file:

• Need to attach the photos to other documents already in PDF? Merge the photos' PDF with your other documents so you send only one file.
• Does the file also include a form filled in with Word? It converts the same way, on the page dedicated to Word to PDF conversion, before assembly.
• Does a photo show information that is none of the recipient's business, such as an account number? Permanently erase that information from the PDF rather than covering it with a simple rectangle.
• So that only the recipient can open a sensitive document, add a password to the PDF and share it through another channel.
• For a copy of an ID card, a watermark stating the intended use and the date limits its misuse.

Your photos are not HEIC but JPG or PNG? The process is the same with JPG and PNG image to PDF conversion.

More questions about converting HEIC to PDF

How do I stop the iPhone from saving its photos as HEIC?

In Settings > Camera > Formats, choose “Most Compatible”: new photos will be saved as JPEG. Photos already taken stay in HEIC. You can also keep HEIC on the phone and set Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC to “Automatic”, so that photos copied to a computer are converted to a compatible format.

Will the text in my document photo be searchable in the PDF?

No, not directly: a photo remains an image, even inside a PDF. To be able to search or copy the text, run the PDF through text recognition to make the document searchable. The result depends on how sharp the photo is: take it perfectly flat, under even lighting.

Are the PDF's pages A4 size?

No: each page has the dimensions of the photo, so nothing is cut off or distorted. If an organization requires A4 pages, you can switch the PDF's pages to A4 size: each photo is reduced without distortion and centered on the page.

Do I need the same browser as the one on the iPhone?

No. Any recent browser will do, on a computer or a phone, since HEIC decoding is handled by the tool itself, not by the browser. That is precisely what makes it possible to convert HEIC photos on a computer that cannot display them.