How to Turn Screenshots Into a PDF (One or Many)
Turn one screenshot or a whole folder of them into a single PDF on Windows, Mac, iPhone, or Android. No apps to install.
Screenshots multiply. One becomes four, four become a folder, and suddenly you need to send "the screenshots" to someone as a single, ordered, professional-looking file instead of a chat message with nine images in random order. That file is a PDF, and making one takes about a minute on any device.
The fast way for any number of screenshots (no install)
This is what I'd do in almost every case:
- Open our JPG to PDF tool in any browser.
- Drag your screenshots in — PNG, JPG, mixed, doesn't matter.
- Drag the thumbnails into the right order.
- Download. One PDF, one page per screenshot.
Everything happens in your browser. The screenshots never upload to a server, which matters more with screenshots than almost any other file type, because screenshots have a way of containing account numbers, names, and half your inbox in the background.
On Windows, offline
- Select the screenshots in File Explorer.
- Right-click > Print.
- Choose Microsoft Print to PDF as the printer.
- Pick the "Full page photo" layout and print.
Two catches: the order follows filename sorting, so rename files 01, 02, 03 first if order matters, and Windows insists on adding margins you can't fully remove. If Microsoft Print to PDF is missing from your printer list, here's how to restore it.
On a Mac, offline
- Select the screenshots in Finder and open them all in Preview (they open as one sidebar of pages).
- Drag them into order in the sidebar.
- File > Print, then click the PDF dropdown in the bottom-left and choose Save as PDF.
Preview's sidebar reordering makes this the nicest built-in experience of any OS, honestly.
On iPhone
The hidden-gesture method: select the screenshots in Photos, tap Share > Print, then pinch outward on the preview. The print preview silently becomes a PDF; tap Share again to save it to Files or send it. Weird, undiscoverable, works every time.
On Android
Open a screenshot in Google Photos, tap ⋮ > Print, choose Save as PDF. Multiple screenshots are clumsier here; select them in Google Files and use the print flow, or just use the browser method at the top, which works identically on a phone.
Making the PDF presentable
- Crop out the clutter (dock, status bar, that one embarrassing tab) with our crop tool after combining.
- Blur or black out private info before sharing. Use redaction, not a marker scribble in an image editor; genuine redaction removes the data underneath.
- Shrink the file if a long capture session produced a 40 MB monster: compress it.
One tip that prevents the whole problem
If you're screenshotting a long document or webpage piece by piece, check whether the page can just print to PDF directly (Ctrl+P in the browser). One command, no stitching, selectable text instead of pictures of text. Screenshots are for when that isn't possible.