Convexy

How to convert PNG to PDF on iPhone

Most PNGs that need to become PDFs are screenshots — of a confirmation, a booking, a bank transaction, a chat — and something official wants them as a document. This wraps the image in a single-page PDF, on your device.

What the conversion produces

PDF is a page-description format, not an image format. Convexy creates a PDF with one page, sized to the PNG's own pixel dimensions, and draws the image onto it. No cropping, no letterboxing, no forced A4 page with awkward white margins — the page is the shape of your screenshot.

Because PNG is lossless, and the image is embedded rather than re-photographed, the pixels in the PDF are the pixels you started with. A crisp screenshot stays crisp. A screenshot of small text stays exactly as readable as it was — no better, no worse.

Transparency is not flattened. Unlike a JPG conversion — where Convexy has to composite alpha onto a solid background because JPG has no alpha channel — a PDF page can carry the image's transparency through. If your PNG has transparent regions and the result matters, open the PDF and check it: how a transparent area appears depends on the viewer's page background, which is not something the file controls. For a predictable result, flatten the image deliberately before converting.

Making one PDF out of several images

There is no single-step “many PNGs into one multi-page PDF” conversion, and pretending otherwise would be a lie. The honest route is two steps, and it gives you more control anyway:

  1. Select all the PNGs at once when you browse — two or more files go to the batch screen — and convert them all to PDF.
  2. Open Tools → PDF Merge, add the one-page PDFs, arrange the order, and merge them into one document.

PDF Merge and PDF Split are free forever in Convexy. They are not gated behind the purchase.

The thing people get wrong

A PDF made from a screenshot contains no text. It contains a picture of text. You cannot search it, select it, or copy from it, and any system that expects machine-readable content will find none. For most human-reviewed submissions — an expense claim, proof of payment, a support ticket — that is completely fine. For anything automated, it is not.

Extracting real characters from an image requires OCR, which is a different technology altogether. Convexy does not do OCR and does not imply that it does. (Going the other way — a PDF that already has a text layer — Convexy can extract that text properly.)

Screenshots are exactly the wrong thing to upload to a random converter. Bank confirmations, medical portals, private messages, internal dashboards, two-factor codes. A free web converter takes your screenshot onto a server you know nothing about, in exchange for a download link. Convexy builds the PDF on the device — no upload, no account, no network call, works in Airplane Mode.

Keeping the file small

PNG is lossless, so a full-resolution screenshot from a modern iPhone can be several megabytes, and the PDF inherits that weight. There is no quality slider when writing a PDF from an image — the picture is embedded as-is. If an upload limit is squeezing you, set a maximum dimension in Options to scale the image down before it is wrapped, or convert the PNG to a JPG first and turn that into the PDF, accepting the lossy step in exchange for a much smaller document.

How to do it

  1. Pick the PNG

    Tap Browse files or choose from Photos — screenshots live in Photos. Select several at once if you intend to merge them into one document afterwards.

  2. Choose PDF

    PDF is listed among the formats a PNG can become. Tap it.

  3. Resize if there is an upload limit

    No quality slider applies here; the image goes into the page as it is. To make the PDF smaller, cap the image's maximum dimension in Options before converting.

  4. Convert

    The result is a one-page PDF whose page matches the screenshot's pixel dimensions.

  5. Merge into one document if needed

    Open Tools, pick PDF Merge, add your one-page PDFs, set the order, and merge. It is a free tool — no purchase required.

Common questions

How do I turn several screenshots into a single PDF?

Convert them all to PDF in one batch — select multiple files when browsing — then use the free PDF Merge tool under Tools to combine the resulting pages into one document in the order you want. Two steps, no fudging: there is no one-tap multi-image-to-PDF conversion, and merging gives you control over page order anyway.

Will the PDF page be A4 or Letter?

No — the page is sized to the PNG's own pixel dimensions, so it keeps the screenshot's aspect ratio and nothing is cropped or padded with margins. If you need a genuine A4 or Letter page for printing on paper, lay the image out in a document app; that is page layout, not format conversion.

Can I select or search the text in the PDF?

No. The PDF holds an image of text, not text. Nothing in the file is searchable or selectable. Getting real characters out of a picture requires OCR, which Convexy does not do. If a system needs machine-readable text, a screenshot-based PDF will not satisfy it.

What happens to transparency in the PNG?

It is not flattened — a PDF page can carry the alpha through, unlike a JPG, which has no alpha channel and forces a solid background. The practical catch is that how a transparent region looks depends on the PDF viewer's page background, which the file does not control. If the appearance matters, flatten the transparency deliberately before you convert.

Why is my PDF so large?

Because PNG is lossless and a full-resolution iPhone screenshot is genuinely a lot of pixels — the PDF simply carries that weight. Cap the maximum dimension in Options, or convert the PNG to a JPG first and wrap that instead. The lossy step costs you a little fidelity and saves a great deal of size.