Convert TIFF to PDF: what to know
Scanners, fax software and document management exports still produce TIFF, and almost every place that wants a scanned document — banks, universities, tax portals, courts — wants it as a PDF. This page decodes TIFF files on your device and writes them into a PDF, one page per file, in the order you choose, without uploading anything.
How to convert TIFF to PDF
Drop the .tif or .tiff files above (a small decoder is fetched the first time). Order them with the arrows, or Sort by name for scanner output numbered page-001, page-002 and so on. Choose A4 or US Letter for a printable document, or Fit to image to keep each page at the scan's own size, then click Create PDF. Up to 20 files of 20 MB each per batch; re-save very large uncompressed scans with LZW compression first.
How the scan is stored in the PDF
PDF cannot hold TIFF data directly, so each file is decoded and stored as a high-quality JPG (quality 92) inside the document — or as lossless PNG-style pixels when the TIFF has transparency. At quality 92 text scans stay clean and the page is the full resolution of the scan. Bilevel fax TIFFs become grayscale pages; they are small either way.
Multi-page TIFF files contribute their first page. For a multi-page fax or scanner file, export it as one TIFF per page (most scanner software has an option for that) and add all of them here; combine is on by default, so they become one PDF.
Keeping the PDF small enough to send
A 300 dpi A4 colour scan is 25 MB as an uncompressed TIFF and about 1 MB as a JPG page, so a ten-page document lands near 10 MB. Reduce file size caps each page at 2480 pixels on the long side (exactly 300 dpi on A4) and uses JPG quality 80, which usually halves that again with no visible change on paper. For grayscale text scans, converting the TIFFs to JPG first in the converter and sending the results here gives the smallest files.
Supported TIFF files
Uncompressed, LZW, PackBits and Deflate compression, RGB, grayscale, palette and bilevel images, both byte orders. JPEG-in-TIFF and some CMYK variants are rejected with a clear message; re-saving as LZW TIFF fixes them. The 40-megapixel limit applies per file. Resolution tags in the TIFF are not used for the page size — choose A4/Letter for a standard page, which scales the scan to fit.
Questions about TIFF to PDF
- Is the scan uploaded?
- No. Decoding and PDF creation run in your browser; only the decoder code is downloaded.
- Can I combine many TIFF scans into one PDF?
- Yes — up to 20 files per batch, ordered with the arrows or Sort by name.
- What happens to multi-page TIFFs?
- The first page is used. Export one TIFF per page from your scanner for a complete document.
- Does it keep the scan resolution?
- Yes unless Reduce file size is on; the full pixels are stored, and A4/Letter pages scale them to fit the page.