How to use the HEIC to PDF converter
- Add the HEIC photos from your phone, iCloud download or AirDrop folder.
- Put them in page order, then pick A4 or Letter with a margin for a document look, or keep each photo’s natural size.
- Press Convert to PDF and save one document, or untick the combine option for one PDF per photo.
What happens to each photo
PDF has no way to hold HEIC (HEVC) image data, so the browser decodes every photo with a WebAssembly build of libheif and stores it as a JPEG at quality 92. You will not see a difference, but expect the PDF to be bigger than the HEIC files, since JPEG needs more bytes for the same picture.
Only the main still image is used. The short video clip of a Live Photo, any depth information and other extras packed into the file are left out.
Privacy of document photos
Photos of IDs, payslips and medical letters are exactly the kind of file you may not want on a stranger’s server. Here decoding and PDF assembly both happen inside your browser tab.
Capture details such as date, camera model and GPS location are not copied into the PDF either, because only the picture itself is placed on the page.
Questions
My phone exported JPG instead of HEIC. Which tool do I use?
JPG to PDF. It embeds JPG photos as they are, without decoding them at all.
Does this work on Windows?
Yes. The HEIC decoder runs in WebAssembly, so it does not depend on the operating system: a Windows PC or an Android phone handles these photos just like a Mac.
What about HEIC images with transparency?
Those are rare. When one turns up, it is stored losslessly so the see-through parts survive, rather than being converted to JPEG.
Can I make the pages smaller?
Run the finished PDF through Compress PDF. Its Recommended level recompresses phone photos to a fraction of their size while text on them stays legible.