JPG vs PNG to PDF — Which Should You Use?

If you’re turning images into a PDF — a stack of receipts, a set of screenshots, a scanned form — the source format changes the result more than people expect. Here’s a quick guide to picking between JPG and PNG.

The one-line difference

• JPG uses lossy compression. It’s brilliant for photographs and anything with smooth gradients, and the files are small. The cost is subtle artefacts around sharp edges and text.
• PNG uses lossless compression. It keeps every pixel exactly, which makes it ideal for screenshots, logos, diagrams and line art with hard edges and flat colour — at the price of a larger file.

Choosing for common cases

• Photos and camera scans of documents → JPG. The content is continuous-tone, so JPG’s compression is nearly invisible and the PDF stays small.
• Screenshots, charts, diagrams, logos → PNG. Hard edges and text stay razor-sharp instead of getting fuzzy.
• A mix? Convert each image in its best format, then combine — JPG photos and PNG screenshots can live in the same PDF.

Turn them into a PDF privately

Both JPG to PDF and PNG to PDF run in your browser: add your images, arrange them, and download a single PDF. Nothing is uploaded — you can confirm it in the DevTools Network tab — which is reassuring when the images are ID documents, signed forms or anything you’d rather not hand to a server.

If the finished PDF is bigger than you’d like (PNG-heavy files often are), run it through Compress PDF afterwards to bring the size down.