Convert HEIC to PDF Online — Free
Convert iPhone HEIC photos to PDF documents online for free. No watermark, no signup. PDFWix processes most files inside your browser for full privacy.
Every iPhone since the iPhone 7 running iOS 11 (September 2017) saves photos as HEIC by default. The format is brilliant — roughly 30-50% smaller than JPG at the same visible quality — but almost nothing outside Apple's ecosystem opens it cleanly. Email a HEIC to a Windows colleague and they get a 'this file can't be previewed' error. Converting your iPhone photos to a single PDF fixes that and makes them archive-ready, printable, and shareable across every platform.
What is HEIC?
HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is Apple's name for HEIF — a still-image format defined by the MPEG group and based on the same HEVC compression used in modern video. It stores one or more images, depth maps, alpha channels and even Apple's Live Photo sidecar in a single .heic container.
The compression advantage is real: at the same visual quality, a HEIC is typically 30-50% smaller than the equivalent JPG. The cost is compatibility. Native support exists in macOS High Sierra+, iOS 11+, Windows 10 1809+ (with the HEVC Video Extension installed, $0.99 from the Microsoft Store) and most modern Linux distros via libheif. Older Windows boxes, most CMS upload widgets and a lot of legacy print pipelines still reject HEIC outright.
Why convert HEIC to PDF?
PDF is the lowest-common-denominator document format. Every operating system, every email client, every printer driver opens a PDF without complaint — which is exactly what HEIC isn't.
Bundling iPhone photos into a single PDF also gives you something a HEIC can't: pagination. A trip to the doctor's office that produced 11 photos of insurance paperwork becomes one ordered, scrollable document instead of 11 attachments your accountant has to download separately. PDF preserves the embedded EXIF orientation Apple writes into HEIC, so portrait photos shot vertically stay vertical.
Common use cases: submitting iPhone-photographed receipts to expense systems that only accept PDF, emailing a multi-photo insurance claim, archiving event photos in a format that will still open in 2040, and stapling visual evidence to a contract or report.
How to convert HEIC to PDF with PDFWix
PDFWix decodes HEIC directly in your browser using the libheif WebAssembly build. That matters because iPhone photos are personal — your camera roll never leaves your device.
- Open pdfwix.com/jpg-to-pdf in Safari, Chrome, Edge or Firefox.
- Drag your .heic files from Finder, the Photos app export, or your Downloads folder onto the dropzone — multi-select is supported.
- Reorder pages by dragging the thumbnails into the sequence you want.
- Pick page size (A4, US Letter, or Fit-to-image) and margin.
- Click Convert. A single combined PDF downloads to your device.
Processing is fully browser-side. Your photos are decoded, laid out and encoded into PDF entirely in JavaScript and WebAssembly running on your machine — nothing is uploaded to a server.
Native HEIC conversion methods
On Mac. Open the HEICs in Preview (double-click selects the first; Cmd+A selects all in a folder), then File → Print → PDF dropdown → Save as PDF. Preview produces a clean, multi-page PDF and is genuinely the right tool when you're already on a Mac.
On iPhone/iPad. Open the photos in the Photos app, tap Share, scroll to Print, then pinch-zoom-out on the print preview to convert it to a PDF you can save to Files. The flow is unintuitive but works without any app install.
On Windows. No native multi-image-to-PDF tool. You can install Apple's HEIC codec (MS Store) and then print individual HEICs to Microsoft Print to PDF, but you can only do one image at a time. PDFWix or any web converter is faster.
Frequently asked questions
Will my Live Photos animate in the PDF?
No. PDF is a static document format and cannot embed the short video that makes a Live Photo move. Only the still keyframe is converted. If you need the motion, export as a GIF or MP4 from the Photos app first.
Does PDFWix preserve EXIF orientation?
Yes. The libheif decoder reads the EXIF orientation tag iPhones embed and rotates the image during encoding so portrait photos stay portrait in the PDF.
What about HEIC depth maps from Portrait mode?
PDFWix uses the main image only; the depth map and alpha channels are discarded because PDF cannot represent them. The resulting PDF page looks identical to the photo as it appears in the Photos app.
Is there a file-size or quantity limit?
Practical limit is your device's RAM. We've tested batches of 100 iPhone HEICs (about 250 MB of source) on mid-range laptops without issues. The output PDF size is roughly 2-3× the source HEIC total because PDF wraps images in a container that doesn't compress as tightly as HEIC does.
Can I convert HEIC to JPG instead?
Yes — open PDF to JPG and reverse the flow, or use Preview on Mac (File → Export → JPEG). For most sharing scenarios, PDF is the safer pick because it keeps multiple images in one file.