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How can I convert about 100 PNGs to one PDF on a Mac? I'm open to using the command line if it helps.

I have tried using iPhoto, but it quits, not sure why. Saving from Preview doesn't quite do what I want. Thoughts?

tekknolagi
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7 Answers7

102

If you have Leopard (10.5 or later) or Lion the easiest way is to use Preview. Just do the following:

  1. Open the first image in Preview
  2. Show the the sidebar (Shift-Command-D)
  3. Drag any additional images to the sidebar
  4. Go to File > Print (Command P)
  5. In the PDF dropdown list select Save as PDF

That's it! You should now have a PDF containing all your images.

If that doesn't work for you, you should look at any third-party solutions such as Adobe Acrobat Pro which has a combine feature or PDFLab.

1.21 gigawatts
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mekwall
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I prefer using command line tools such as ImageMagick for this type of work. You can install IM with Homebrew:

brew install imagemagick

Afterwards you can do

convert *.jpg output.pdf

and if the resulting PDF is a bit too big you can try:

convert -quality 60 *.jpg output.pdf

Of course ImageMagick also works on other Unix systems, and even on cygwin.

(If you want a specific order you can also write out the .jpg filenames one by one. Or use * and rename the .jpgs in alphabetical order.)

the
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11

My method is similar to Marcus's, but works a little better for me when the images are all different sizes and you don't want the PDF to just be all 8.5x11 but to keep each page the size of the original image.

  1. Open the first image in Preview
  2. Show thumbnails (Command-option-2)
  3. Drag any additional images to the sidebar

After this we diverge:

  1. Select all image thumbnails in the sidebar (select one by clicking, then Command-A)
  2. File > Export Selected Images...
  3. Select or create a folder to hold your temporary images, set Format to PDF, and click Choose
  4. Close all original images
  5. Open the LAST exported PDF in Preview (this will become the last page)
  6. Drag all the other exported PDFs to the sidebar and drop ON TOP of the thumbnail for the exported PDF you just opened
  7. This should create a multipage PDF with the images in the same order they were in the Finder. Rename it so you can find it easily, save and you're done.
Dave
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6

I highly recommend the Python CLI program img2pdf for lossless conversion:

https://gitlab.mister-muffin.de/josch/img2pdf

Example usage:

img2pdf img1.png img2.jpg -o out.pdf
Adam Erickson
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4

MacOS 12.6

Allows you to do this in 3 seconds:

  1. In Finder Mark all PNGs you want to convert
  2. Right click
  3. Select Quick Actions
  4. Select Create PDF

Bonus this also works with if you have mixed file types: E.g. If you want to convert JPEGs and PNGs and PDFs into one single PDF!

enter image description here

ilam engl
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On more current versions of OSX, you may be better off using the native command line tool sips - see the answered Stack Overflow question 6349984, which converts from pdf to png. It should be far easier to script sips (which has been available since ~2009) than click multiple times within Preview.

Essentially,

sips -s format pdf input-png-file-path --out output-pdf-file-path
Kamil Maciorowski
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Jason
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0

A much simpler way is to use the rather overlooked app Automator, that you find in the Applications folder.

This link shows exactly how: Use Automator to combine your research photos into one PDF

Lykke Madsen
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