How to turn screenshots into one PDF

Getting the order right

Screenshots are numbered by the time they were taken, which is not always the order you want them read in. After choosing them in PNG to PDF, move them up or down until they read as a sequence; the PDF uses the order on screen. If you add more later, Merge PDF joins the new pages to the old file, and Organize PDF pages moves pages around afterwards.

Page size: match the image, or fit on A4?

• Match image size makes each page exactly as big as its screenshot. Nothing is scaled, which is best for reading on a screen. A tall phone screenshot becomes a tall, narrow page.
• Fit to A4 scales each image onto an A4 sheet. Use it when the PDF will be printed or attached to a form that expects ordinary pages.

Phone and desktop screenshots in one file are easier to read on A4, because otherwise the page size jumps from one page to the next.

Why the PDF can be large

PNG keeps every pixel exactly, which is why text in a screenshot stays crisp, and also why ten full-screen screenshots can add up to several megabytes. If the file is too large to send, run it through Compress PDF afterwards; for screenshots of text, the gentler settings are usually enough. JPG or PNG for a PDF explains when each format is the better choice.

Check what the screenshots show

Screenshots capture more than you notice: a notification at the top, a contact's name, the time and battery level, an open tab, part of an account number. Look at each one at full size before combining them. Crop the edges off in your phone's photo editor before converting, or after converting with Crop PDF.

Cropping a PDF hides the edges but does not remove them from the file. For anything that must not be readable — an account number, an address — use Redact PDF, which removes it, or crop the image itself before it goes into the PDF.