JPG, PNG or PDF: Which Format Should You Use?
Photos, screenshots, scanned documents and forms each have a format that suits them best. A plain-language comparison of JPG, PNG and PDF, with practical recommendations.
"Please send it as a PDF." "Upload a JPG or PNG." Everyday life is full of format requirements, and choosing the wrong one can mean blurry text, huge files or a rejected upload. JPG, PNG and PDF each solve a different problem. Once you know what each is good at, choosing becomes easy.
JPG: made for photos
JPG (or JPEG) is the standard format for photographs. It uses lossy compression: it discards details that the human eye barely notices in natural images, such as tiny variations in colour. That makes photos remarkably small; a picture that would take 30 MB uncompressed often fits in 2 to 4 MB.
Strengths: small files, universal support, ideal for photos with smooth gradients.
Weaknesses: sharp edges, such as text, lines and screenshots, can get faint smudges around them, especially at stronger compression. Every time a JPG is edited and saved again, it loses a little more quality. No transparency.
PNG: made for sharp edges
PNG uses lossless compression: the image is stored exactly, pixel for pixel. It's excellent for screenshots, logos, diagrams and anything with text or flat areas of colour, and it supports transparent backgrounds.
Strengths: perfect sharpness, transparency, no loss when saved repeatedly.
Weaknesses: photos in PNG are much larger than in JPG, often five to ten times, with no visible benefit.
PDF: made for documents
PDF isn't really an image format; it's a document format. A PDF can contain text, vector graphics and images, spread over many pages, and it looks the same on every device and printer. Text in a PDF created by software stays selectable and searchable.
Strengths: multiple pages in one file, fixed layout, sharp text at any zoom, universally accepted for official documents, can be printed at a defined paper size.
Weaknesses: not directly usable as a picture on websites or social media; harder to edit than a text document.
Which format for which job?
| What you have | Best format | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A photo of a person, place or object | JPG | Small files, natural look |
| A screenshot or diagram | PNG | Text and lines stay perfectly sharp |
| A logo with a transparent background | PNG | Supports transparency |
| A scanned document, one or more pages | Keeps pages together, accepted everywhere | |
| A contract, CV or certificate to send | Fixed layout, looks the same for the recipient | |
| A document page to share in a chat or post | JPG | Displays directly as a picture |
| Several photos for an application or claim | One organised file instead of many |
Converting between formats
- Images to PDF: Image to PDF places JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC images on PDF pages; Scan to PDF does the same for photos of paper documents, with a cleaning filter.
- PDF to images: PDF to Image turns each page into a JPG, or extracts the original images stored in the PDF.
Keep in mind that converting can't add quality that isn't there. A blurry photo stays blurry in a PDF, and a PDF page converted to a small JPG loses fine detail. Choose a suitable resolution when converting; our guide to DPI for screen and print explains how.
What about WebP and HEIC?
WebP is a newer web format from Google that can act like JPG or PNG, usually with smaller files. Browsers support it well, but some older programs and upload forms don't accept it. HEIC is the default photo format on iPhones; it's efficient but not universally supported. If a website rejects one of these, convert it into a PDF, or set your iPhone to save JPG as described in our HEIC guide.
Rules of thumb
- Photo → JPG.
- Screenshot, graphic, logo → PNG.
- Anything that is a document, or has several pages → PDF.
- When a form allows both PDF and JPG for a document, PDF is usually the better choice.