How to convert PNG to PDF
- Drop your PNG files into the box above, or click to browse. You can also paste with Ctrl+V.
- Adjust quality or resizing under Conversion settings if you need to. The defaults suit most photos.
- Conversion starts automatically and runs on your device — watch the progress bar for each file.
- Download files individually, or grab everything as a ZIP.
What changes when you convert PNG to PDF
A PDF is a container, not an image format, so this conversion does not re-compress anything by necessity — it wraps your image in a document. What matters is which encoding goes inside the wrapper, and that decision changes the file size by a factor of three or more.
If the PNG is fully opaque, the image is embedded as JPEG. PDF supports JPEG natively, viewers decode it instantly, and a screenshot that was 1.0 MB as a PNG becomes a 0.4 MB PDF with no visible difference. If the PNG has any transparent pixels, it is embedded losslessly instead, because JPEG cannot carry an alpha channel — that keeps the transparency but produces a file roughly the same size as the original PNG.
Page geometry is the other thing worth understanding. PDF measures pages in points, and there are 72 points to an inch. The page here is sized to match the image one-for-one, so a 3000 × 2000 pixel image produces a page 3000 × 2000 points — about 106 × 71 cm. That sounds wrong but it is the right default: it means the image is never cropped, never stretched, and never surrounded by white margins. Any viewer will scale it to fit the screen, and any printer will scale it to fit the paper.
Screenshots and diagrams are where this conversion earns its keep. PNG is a lossless format built for flat colour and sharp edges, and a screenshot embedded in a PDF at JPEG quality 82 keeps its text crisp while shedding more than half its bytes. Photographs saved as PNG are a different story — they are usually enormous to begin with, and the resulting PDF stays large.
What is preserved
- Exact pixel dimensions — the page is sized to the image, so nothing is cropped or letterboxed
- Transparency, when it is present: the image is embedded as PNG inside the PDF and the alpha channel survives
- Sharpness of text and line art, because PNG data is embedded losslessly rather than re-compressed
What is lost
- PNG ancillary chunks: tEXt comments, creation software, and any custom metadata
- Animation, if the source is an APNG — only the first frame is embedded
- Colour profiles beyond sRGB are not carried into the PDF colour space
What is altered
- Opaque images are embedded as JPEG rather than PNG, which cuts the file size dramatically at no visible cost
- The page size is expressed in points at 72 dpi, so a 3000 px wide image produces a very large page rather than an A4 one
PDF support in browsers and operating systems
Checked on 2026-08-09. We re-verify this table every quarter.
| Platform | Support |
|---|---|
| Chrome | built-in PDF viewer since 2010 |
| Safari | built-in, all versions |
| Firefox | built-in pdf.js viewer since Firefox 19 |
| Edge | built-in |
| iOS | Files, Mail and Safari open PDFs natively |
| Android | Google Drive PDF viewer preinstalled on most devices |
| Windows | Edge is the default handler; Acrobat Reader optional |
| macOS | Preview, all versions |
When not to convert PNG to PDF
If you need several images in one document, use the PDF builder instead. It takes several images, lets you set the page order and page size, and produces one file — converting them one at a time and merging afterwards is the long way round.
If the PNG is a photograph and your goal is a small file, converting to PDF will not help much — the wrapper adds structure but the pixel data still dominates. Compress the image first, then convert.
If you want a specific paper size — A4 or US Letter with margins — this tool will not produce it. It sizes the page to the image deliberately, which is what most people want for a screenshot or a scan but not what you want for a printable document.
And if the image is going onto the web rather than into a document, PDF is the wrong destination entirely. WebP or AVIF will be smaller, will display inline, and will not force a download in most browsers.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my PDF page enormous — 106 cm wide?
PDF pages are measured in points, and one point is 1/72 of an inch. The page is sized to match your image exactly, so a 3000-pixel-wide image becomes a 3000-point-wide page. Nothing is cropped or distorted, and every viewer scales the page to fit your screen or paper automatically. The alternative — forcing A4 — would either crop the image or add white margins.
Does transparency survive the conversion?
Yes. When the PNG contains transparent pixels the image is embedded losslessly, which preserves the alpha channel inside the PDF. Be aware that most PDF viewers render the page on a white background, so transparent areas will look white unless you place the PDF over something else.
Why is the PDF smaller than the PNG I started with?
Because opaque images are embedded as JPEG. PNG stores every pixel losslessly, which is wasteful for screenshots with gradients and photographic content; JPEG at quality 82 discards detail the eye does not notice. If your PNG has transparency the lossless path is used instead, and the PDF will be about the same size as the original.
Can I combine several PNGs into one multi-page PDF?
Yes, but with the PDF builder rather than this page. This converter makes one single-page PDF per image, which is what you want for a single file. The builder takes several images, lets you set the page order, and produces one document — it is a different job and has its own tool.
Is the PDF searchable?
No. The result contains an image, not text, so nothing in it is selectable or searchable — even if the PNG is a screenshot full of words. Making it searchable needs OCR, which recognises the characters and adds an invisible text layer behind the image.