How to Convert TIFF to PDF on Mac

TIFF keeps scans, fax pages and print-ready images without losing detail, which is why scanners and archives still use it. It is a poor format for sending, though: the files are large, and many upload forms and viewers don't open it.

A PDF opens in any browser or reader, keeps its pages in a fixed order and prints at a predictable size. That is why application portals and clients usually ask for one.

Yes. Preview, Finder and the sips command in Terminal can all do it, and for a single TIFF or a handful of files they are enough.

• Preview: open the TIFF, choose File > Export as PDF… and save. A multi-page TIFF shows every page in Preview's sidebar, and the PDF keeps them.
• Preview, several TIFFs: open them in one window, drag the thumbnails into order, then choose File > Print and pick Save as PDF from the PDF menu. The print dialog sets the paper size and how each image is scaled onto it.
• Finder: select the TIFFs, Control-click and choose Quick Actions > Create PDF. The new PDF appears next to the images, and you get no say over page size or margins.
• Terminal: sips -s format pdf scan.tiff --out scan.pdf makes a one-page PDF whose size follows the TIFF's own resolution, so a 300 dpi A4 scan gives an A4 page. For a folder, create one such as pdfs, then run sips -s format pdf *.tiff --out pdfs (*.tif for files with that extension). A multi-page TIFF contributes only its first page, and sips replaces same-named files without asking.

File Acture's Images to PDF combines TIFF, JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, AVIF, GIF and BMP images into one PDF, one image per page. It reads color, grayscale and black-and-white TIFFs, including LZW-compressed and fax-style Group 4 ones.

Drag the files in the list into page order, then choose a Page size and a Margin, type a File name under Result and click Create PDF. The PDF is saved to Documents › File Acture › PDF or the folder you choose, and the TIFFs themselves stay untouched.

Pages without transparency are stored as high-quality JPEG, and pages with transparency losslessly. A TIFF's tags, such as the artist and description, are left out of the PDF, and nothing is uploaded along the way.

Choose A4 or US Letter for scanned documents, and Fit to image for photos and screenshots that will only be viewed on screen.

• Fit to image: each page takes the size of its image at 150 DPI, whatever resolution the TIFF says. A 300 dpi A4 scan is 2480 × 3508 pixels, so its page comes out about twice the size of A4.
• A4 and US Letter: each image is fitted on a standard page and turned to landscape when the image is wider than it is tall.
• Margin: None, Small (a quarter inch) or Large (half an inch). A small margin keeps printers from cutting off the edges.

That depends on the TIFF. A color or grayscale TIFF is usually far larger than its PDF page, because File Acture stores the page as high-quality JPEG: in our tests, an uncompressed 34.8 MB photo TIFF (3840 × 3018 pixels) became a PDF of about 1.5 MB, and an LZW-compressed 11.2 MB one did too.

Black-and-white fax-style TIFFs go the other way. They are tiny, and a grayscale JPEG page takes more room, so their PDFs come out larger. If the finished PDF is too large for an upload, compress the PDF to a target size instead of shrinking each page by hand.

Check the pages, the order and the size before you send the PDF.

• Several pages in one TIFF: a multi-page TIFF contributes only its first page, as an animated GIF contributes only its first frame. Preview lists every page of such a TIFF in its sidebar, so open those there.
• Page order: the order of the file list is the order of the pages. Drag rows up or down, or give the files numbered names such as 01, 02 and 03 and add them from a Finder window sorted by name.
• Need searchable text? Run OCR PDF on the result, so the words in scans can be found. Already have PDFs to add? Merge PDF files.
• More than 5 TIFFs: the free version takes up to 5 images per run, with 3 runs on each Mac. Pro has no limit; see pricing.

Online converters need your scans on their servers before they can build anything, a poor fit for contracts, IDs and client files. File Acture builds the PDF on your Mac, so the files never leave it; the free version needs an internet connection only to count its runs, and Pro works without one.

If the PDF is going to an application portal, check its size limit first.