Convert a TIFF to PDF
TIFF is the format of scanners and archives, but very few people can open one. Converting it to PDF makes your documents readable by anyone.
An archival format that travels badly
TIFF is the default output of most professional scanners and heritage digitisation workflows. It stores the image losslessly, supports very high resolutions and can hold several pages in one file.
Its weakness lies elsewhere: browsers, mail clients and most consumer viewers simply will not display it. Sending someone a TIFF often means sending a file they cannot open. A PDF opens anywhere.
What the conversion preserves
The original scan resolution is kept in full: a document digitised at 600 DPI stays legible when you zoom into the resulting PDF, which matters for old documents and handwriting.
You can drop several TIFF files at once to get a single ordered PDF — handy for reassembling a folder scanned page by page.
Frequently asked questions
Why convert a TIFF to PDF?
Because TIFF opens in neither a browser nor most mail clients and consumer viewers, whereas PDF is readable anywhere with no particular software.
Is the scan quality reduced?
No. The original resolution is preserved, including on 600 DPI scans. An old document stays legible when zoomed in the PDF.
Can I convert a multi-page TIFF?
Drop the file and run the conversion. For a folder made of several separate TIFFs, drop them together: they become the successive pages of one PDF.