Convert JPEG Photographs Into PDF Documents
By Adrian Nelson
How (and why) you should convert your JPEG photographs into Adobe's Portable Document
Format (PDF). The "Why" discusses the limitations of the JPEG image
format as a method of image distribution and covers the benefits and advantages
of converting them into PDF documents. The "How" discusses some of
the software options available together with their relative merits.
If you already know what JPEGs and PDFs are then skip to the "Why should you convert JPEG
images into PDF documents" section to learn about some of the benefits and advantages of
converting your JPEG photographs into PDF documents.
What is a JPEG?
JPEG (pronounced "jay-peg") is a royalty free image format that was created by a committee
known as the Joint Photographics Expert Group. It was designed to compress photographic
images so that they take up much less space.
However, the JPEG format is a "lossy" one. This means that when a JPEG image is decompressed
it is not quite the same as the original image. But don’t worry as this is not a big
issue because it is possible to set the quality level that should be used for
an image.
At a high quality level the human eye will not be able to distinguish the differences and
you will still get a very useful space saving with about a 10:1 compression ratio – ie an
image will be compressed to one tenth of their original size.
At medium quality levels you will be able to spot slight differences (known as "compression
artifacts") but these should not normally detract from the image and you will get a compression
ratio of around 20:1.
Of course lower quality levels are available that allow a compression ratio of 100:1 to be
achieved but the resultant images will look very "blocky".
JPEG is probably the most popular image format in use thanks to its high image quality and
low space requirements. It is widely used on the Internet and as the storage format for
photographs taken with most digital cameras.
What is a PDF?
PDF is a royalty free general purpose Portable Document Format created by Adobe Systems.
It is ideal for storing and displaying fixed layout documents in a device and resolution
independent way.
What this means is that a PDF document will be displayed in the same way no matter what
device it is viewed on – whether it is on a PC with a large screen or on a small personal
organizer.
It is also important to note that a PDF document can be printed to any printer and the printed
output should look exactly the same (or at least as close as possible subject to any
limitations that the printer might have).
Because of the benefits outlined above, PDF is widely used on the Internet and is
extensively used within the print industry where printing accuracy is a must.
Why should you convert JPEG images into PDF documents?
While JPEG images are easy to use there are some limitations with them that make
PDF documents a more attractive way of distributing images.
First of all if you want to display and print a JPEG image then what you see on screen
is not necessarily what you get printed! This is because the screen resolution is likely
to be very different to the printer resolution and the application that is used to display
the image on screen cannot always take this into account.
However, using a PDF document that contains the same image, not only is the image
displayed at the correct size on screen but you get a perfect printed copy.
If you want to store or distribute a number of images together then it makes more sense to
put them into a single PDF file. Especially if you want to send them via email (you only
have to include one file attachment and the recipient can open the PDF document
and scroll through all of the images straight away) or display them on a web
site (you only need to link to one file not lots of them).
With a PDF document you can also restrict what can be done with it – you may only want authorised
users to be able to view the document in which case you can password protect it. Or you
can prevent a user from editing or printing the document if you only want them
to be able to view it on screen.
You can of course do much more with a PDF document, for example, you could create a simple
PDF photo album of your images with a built-in slideshow using some fancy page
transitions between each image.
How can you convert JPEG images into PDF documents?
While you could use the fully featured and relatively expensive Adobe Acrobat application
to convert JPEG images into PDF documents, this can be both time consuming to learn and
overly complex if all you want to do is to convert some JPEG images.
There are some free applications available, such as Open Office, but these do not generally
allow you the same level of control or automation as dedicated third party tools.
A better solution could be to use a dedicated tool such as one of the "Image to PDF" range
of products from Utility Warrior.
There are some other advantages to using a tool that is dedicated to the job of just
converting JPEG images into PDF documents – it will probably be cheaper for a start!
Also, these tools will often be much smaller in size as there is no unnecessary code bloat,
and this can also mean that they are faster in operation – which can be very important if
you have thousands of JPEG images to convert!
Hopefully this brief article will have given you enough grounding to evaluate the solutions
that are available to convert your JPEG images into PDF documents to best find one that
matches your needs. Happy converting!
Copyright © Adrian Nelson
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