How to combine scanned pages into one PDF on your phone

Take photos that are easy to read

The quality of your PDF is decided the moment you press the shutter. No tool can rescue a blurry or half-shadowed page, so a minute spent setting up saves a lot of frustration.

• Use soft, even light. Daylight from a window works well; avoid the camera flash, which causes glare on glossy paper.
• Lay the paper flat on a dark, plain surface so the edges stand out. Weigh down curled corners with coins or a book.
• Hold the phone directly above the page, parallel to it, so lines stay straight instead of narrowing toward the top.
• Watch for your own shadow. Stand so the light comes from the side or in front of you.
• Fill the frame with the page, leaving only a thin border. Wasted background makes the file larger and the text smaller.
• Tap the screen on the text to focus, hold still, and check each photo by zooming in before moving on.

Turn your photos into a PDF

Open the JPG to PDF tool in your phone's browser. Tap to add images and pick your photos from the gallery; you can select several at once. The tool also accepts PNG and WebP, and it reads the rotation information your camera saves, so pages shot in portrait stay upright.

For documents, choose A4 or US Letter as the page size so the PDF prints at a normal size, or keep Same as image if it will only be viewed on screen. Arrange the photos in order, then convert and download.

One iPhone detail: photos saved in the HEIC format are not supported yet. In Settings, Camera, Formats, choose Most Compatible so new photos are saved as JPG.

Merge it with PDFs you already have

Often you need to combine new photos with documents that are already PDFs, such as an emailed confirmation or a downloaded statement. The Merge PDF tool joins any number of PDFs into one file. Add the files, drag them into the right order and save. Pages are copied as they are, so nothing loses quality.

On a phone, downloaded PDFs usually land in the Downloads folder on Android or in the Files app on iPhone, which is where the file picker will look.

Fix the order and sideways pages

Open the combined PDF in the Organize PDF tool to see every page as a thumbnail. Press and drag a page to move it, rotate any page that came out sideways and delete duplicates or blurry retakes. Nothing is changed until you save, and there is an undo button if you slip.

If the only problem is orientation, the Rotate PDF tool is quicker. Rotation in both tools is lossless, so the page content is not re-drawn.

Make the file small enough to send

Phone photos are large, often 2 to 5 MB each, so a ten-page document can easily exceed email attachment limits or portal caps. Run the finished PDF through the Compress PDF tool. The Recommended level re-encodes the photos at a sensible size and quality, which typically cuts a photo-based PDF down substantially while keeping it readable. If a portal names an exact limit, use Target size or one of the preset pages such as 1 MB.

Save and share the result

When you download, your browser saves the PDF to your phone. On Android, Chrome puts it in Downloads, and you can share it from the notification or the Files app. On iPhone, Safari offers to open or save it; choose Save to Files, and from there use the share button to send it by email, WhatsApp or AirDrop. Give the file a clear name before sending, since recipients may receive many similar attachments.

Use it like an app, even offline

PDFHomebase works in Chrome, Safari, Samsung Internet and other mobile browsers, with no app to download from a store. On Android you can install it from the browser menu so it opens from your home screen like any other app; on iPhone, Safari's Add to Home Screen gives you a similar shortcut. After your first visit, the tools keep working without a connection, which is handy on a train or in a building with poor signal. Because processing happens on the phone itself, your documents stay on your device the whole time.

Tools used in this guide

• JPG to PDFTurn photos and images into a single PDF, in any order.
• Merge PDFCombine several PDFs into one document, in the order you choose.
• Organize PDFDrag to reorder, rotate and delete pages in a visual grid.
• Rotate PDFRotate all pages or just the ones that are sideways, then save.
• Compress PDFShrink PDF file size while keeping it readable. Never makes a file bigger.
• Compress PDF to 1 MBGet a PDF under 1 MB for email attachments and online forms.

Frequently asked questions