Conversion Records
One narrow job, covered properly. We test the tools that turn photos and scans into PDF documents, and we write the walkthroughs for the parts that trip people up: page size, resolution, merging a stack of images, and keeping the text in a scan readable.
The Directory
Four drawers, one subject. Reviews of the tools, side-by-side comparisons, step-by-step guides, and a reference file of the questions that keep coming to the counter. Every entry below opens a real page.
Hands-on write-ups of the tools that do this one job: roundups of the best desktop, web, and phone converters, single-tool reviews of Adobe Acrobat, Convertio, and Smallpdf, and a set of alternatives worth trying.
Side-by-sides on the same conversion job, because a tool that is excellent for a single receipt can be miserable for a hundred pages. Acrobat measured against the web converters people reach for most.
The parts that are the same whichever tool you use: a plain walkthrough for turning a JPG into a PDF, an explainer on how these converters actually work, and a buyer’s guide for choosing one.
The recurring questions that come to the counter — formats and compatibility, quality and file size, privacy and retention, mobile workflows and cost — answered in one place.
Our Standards
Three copies of the same commitment — one for the desk, one for the reader, one for the file. If we ever break one of them the page is wrong, and we would rather hear about it and fix it.
Every write-up starts with actual images pushed through the tool: a crumpled receipt, a flatbed scan, a photo taken in bad light. Feature lists are the last thing we read, not the first.
Watermarks, page caps, forced sign-ups, quality quietly thrown away, uploads that leave your machine. Free is a price too, and we say what it is before we say anything kind.
Some links here are affiliate links and may earn us a commission. Nobody pays for a placement, a kind sentence, or a spot in this directory, and no tool sees a draft before you do.
At the Counter
The route every job takes, whichever tool you end up using. Our walkthroughs follow this order, so you can join at whichever step you are stuck on.
Look at what you actually have — phone snaps, flatbed scans, screenshots — and fix crop and orientation first. A PDF locks in whatever you feed it, so the cleanup belongs here.
Letter or A4, portrait or landscape, with or without margins. Whether the image fits the page or the page fits the image is the choice most converters make for you silently.
Enough detail that the smallest line of print survives, not so much that the file becomes unmailable. We explain what the DPI setting is doing rather than naming one magic number.
If it is more than one image, set the sequence before you convert. Renaming the files so they sort correctly is usually faster than dragging thumbnails around afterwards.
Open the PDF at full size and read the smallest text on the page. Run OCR if you will need to search it later. Then give it a name your future self will recognise.