A government portal asks for "both sides of your ID as a PDF". HR wants the receipts from your business trip "in a single file". Your accountant needs the signed contract "scanned". In all three cases what you have at hand is a phone with a camera, and what they want is a PDF. The step in between is simple once you know what to adjust.
1. Take a good photo (it matters most)
No tool can fix a bad photo. Three rules are enough:
- Even light, no flash. Flash creates a white glare right in the middle of the document, which is usually where the important information is. A spot next to a window works better.
- Keep the camera parallel to the paper. If you shoot at an angle, the text at the far end gets smaller and some portals reject it as "illegible".
- A dark, plain background. White paper on a dark table keeps the edges clear and the whole document visible.
If your phone has a "scan document" mode (in the iPhone Notes app or in Google Drive on Android), use it: it crops and straightens automatically. You can still combine those images into a PDF afterwards.
2. Combine the images into a PDF
Open the images to PDF converter, add your photos and reorder them with the arrows: the first one in the list becomes page one. For an ID card, front first and then back.
Pick a page size:
- A4 or Letter if the PDF will be printed or sent to an institution. That's the size they expect, and landscape images are placed on a landscape page automatically. Use Letter in the US and Canada, A4 almost everywhere else.
- Same as image if it's for on-screen viewing, for example a series of screenshots.
A small margin keeps printers from cutting off the edges. Click "Create PDF" and the file downloads. Your photos aren't uploaded anywhere: they're processed in your browser, which matters when the document is an ID.
3. Check the file size before sending
A modern phone photo weighs 2 to 5 MB. Four receipts can easily make a 15 MB PDF, and many government portals and web forms limit uploads to 1–5 MB per file.
If you're over the limit, compress the photos first with the image compressor: 75% quality and a max width of 1920 px. An A4 document at that width is still perfectly readable, and each photo typically drops to 200–400 kB. Then create the PDF again from the compressed images.
4. If you need to add more pages
If you already have a PDF (say, a filled-in application) and want to append the photos of your ID, create a PDF from the photos and then combine both with the merge PDF tool. If there's a page you don't need, remove it with split PDF by extracting only the pages you want.
Common mistakes
- Sending loose photos instead of a PDF. If a portal asks for a PDF, it may reject a JPG even if it looks perfect.
- Sideways photos. Rotate the photo in your phone's gallery before adding it; the PDF keeps the image's orientation.
- iPhone HEIC format. Some browsers can't open it. Set the camera to Settings › Camera › Formats › "Most Compatible" so it saves JPG, or convert them with the image converter in Safari.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to convert my ID on a website?
It depends on the website. Many upload files to their servers for processing. Toolbrik's converter works inside your browser: images are never sent over the internet. You can check by loading the page, disconnecting from the internet and creating the PDF anyway.
What resolution does a scanned document need to be readable?
For an A4 or Letter page, 1500–2000 pixels wide is enough to read normal-sized text. More resolution only adds weight. An ID card is much smaller, so any modern phone photo has more than enough resolution.
Can I put the front and back of my ID on the same page?
This tool places one image per page. If you're asked for both sides on a single sheet, first make one image with both (many phones offer a collage feature) and then convert it to PDF.
Is the text in the resulting PDF selectable?
No. It's an image PDF, just like the one a regular scanner produces. Making the text searchable requires optical character recognition (OCR), which most forms and paperwork don't need.