Photos to PDF on Windows 11: the built-in way and the browser way

The built-in way: Microsoft Print to PDF

Windows 11 ships with a printer called Microsoft Print to PDF that writes a PDF instead of paper.

1. Open the folder in File Explorer and select the photos: click the first, then Ctrl+click the others, or Ctrl+A for all.
2. Right-click the selection. If Print is not in the short menu, click Show more options (or press Shift+F10) to get the full menu, then Print.
3. The Print Pictures window opens. Set Printer to Microsoft Print to PDF.
4. Paper size: A4 or Letter. Layout, on the right: Full page photo gives 1 photo per page; the others put several photos on a page at fixed print sizes (4 x 6 in., wallet size, a contact sheet and so on).
5. Untick “Fit picture to frame” unless you want the edges of each photo cut off to fill the frame.
6. Press Print. A Save Print Output As window asks for a name and a folder. Type a name, for example holiday-2026.pdf, and save.

For 1 or 2 ordinary JPGs that need to be a PDF now, this is the quickest route there is.

Where the Print dialog stops

The dialog is made for printing photos on photo paper, and it shows:

• No way to set the order. There is no list to rearrange. The pages come out in the order Windows hands the files over, which is not always the order you see in the folder.
• Fixed layouts. Full page, a few print sizes and a contact sheet. There is no page orientation per photo: every page in the job is set up the same way.
• No margins. There is no margin setting.
• No HEIC without extensions. Microsoft’s support article on opening HEIF and HEVC files says Windows needs the free HEIF Image Extensions and the HEVC Video Extensions, listed at 0.99 US dollars, both from the Microsoft Store (Microsoft Support, article 4494024, checked on 11 October 2026).
• Large sets are slow, because each photo is prepared like a print job.

The browser way: order, page size and margins

In Edge, Chrome or Firefox on the same PC:

1. Drop the photos on the tool above, or click or a whole folder and pick the folder. A folder is sorted the way people count, so IMG_9 comes before IMG_10. JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, GIF and BMP all work; HEIC needs no extension.
2. Check the order in the list and move a photo with Up and Down; Remove drops one.
3. Paper: A4, US Letter, US Legal, A3, A5 or “Same as the picture”. Orientation: Auto gives each photo a page the same way round as the photo.
4. Margin: in millimetres on every side. 0 for edge to edge on screen, 10 for printing.
5. Fit: Fit shows the whole photo, Fill covers the page and crops, Stretch distorts. Fit is what you almost always want.
6. Output: “One PDF, a page per picture”, or “One PDF per picture” for separate files.
7. Press Make the PDF, then Download PDF. In Edge and Chrome a save window lets you pick the folder; in Firefox the file goes to Downloads.

A JPG’s picture data goes into the PDF unchanged, without the camera details (GPS position, device, time). The result card shows what happened, for example “Left out the camera details of 6 photos (location, device, time); the pictures themselves are untouched”.

The 2 ways side by side

Naming and finding the file

Both routes let you name the file. With getPDF the suggested name comes from the first photo, for example IMG_0412-and-5-more.pdf; change it in the save window. Pick a name you will recognise in a month: 2026-07-graz-trip.pdf beats IMG_0412-and-5-more.pdf. If you lose a file, open File Explorer, type the name in the search box at the top right, and Windows finds it.

The honest part

• For 1 or 2 ordinary JPGs, use Windows. The Print dialog is quicker than any website, ours included. The browser way earns its place with more photos, a set order, mixed orientations, margins or HEIC.
• The PDF is as big as the photos. Photos go in unchanged, so 30 phone photos make a PDF of around 90 MB, far over the 25 MB Gmail and Outlook.com accept. Shrink a copy with Compress PDF; compress a PDF on Windows walks through it.
• No sort by date taken. Both routes go by file, not by the date in the photo. Phone photos named by time already sort in shooting order.
• No text from photos. A photo of a document stays a picture; OCR makes its text searchable, approximately.

For photos straight from an iPhone, see HEIC to PDF and HEIC to PDF on Windows. For order and size in more depth, combine photos into one PDF.