When you turn images into a PDF, the original format affects file size and sharpness. Here is how to choose between JPG and PNG.
What is JPG?
JPG (or JPEG) is designed for photographs. It uses lossy compression, which makes files small by discarding detail the eye barely notices. It is the best choice for photos, scanned pages and receipts photographed with a phone.
What is PNG?
PNG uses lossless compression, so it keeps every pixel exactly as it is. It supports transparency and stays sharp on text, logos, screenshots and diagrams. Files are usually larger than JPG for photographs.
Which one should you pick?
- Photos and scans: JPG gives a smaller PDF with good quality.
- Screenshots, charts and documents with sharp text: PNG keeps edges crisp.
- Images with transparent areas: PNG is the only option of the two.
Keep the PDF small
A PDF is only as small as the images inside it. Before combining photos, resize very large pictures to a sensible size. Phone photos are often much larger than needed for a document.
Try it
You can combine JPG and PNG images with our JPG to PDF tool. It runs in your browser, so your images are not uploaded.