GIF to PDF
Place GIF images in a PDF; an animated GIF gives its first frame.
or drop files anywhere on this page
Your files stay in this browser. Nothing is uploaded.
About GIF to PDF
GIF to PDF places GIF pictures on PDF pages in your browser: old clip art, charts exported from ageing software, scanned forms saved as GIF, or a frame from an animation. Each GIF becomes one page, and the finished PDF is saved on your device.
A GIF can hold at most 256 colours per frame, and those exact colours are what the PDF keeps. Animated GIFs are the one surprise: a PDF page is a still image, so only the first frame makes it onto the page.
How it works
- Add the GIF files by choosing them or dropping them on the page. Other picture formats can be mixed in.
- Arrange the thumbnails into page order by dragging them, or with the Move button on each one.
- Choose Fit to image for small GIFs, so they are not stretched to fill a sheet, or a paper size such as A4 for anything you will print.
- Convert and download the PDF, or a ZIP of separate PDFs if you cleared "Merge into one document".
Animated GIFs give their first frame
The browser hands over the opening frame of an animation, and that frame becomes the page. We confirmed it with a two-frame test file that shows red and then blue: the PDF page came out red.
Because the other frames are dropped, the PDF can be far smaller than the GIF. A 480 by 270 animation of 30 frames, 318 KB as a GIF, made a one-page PDF of 13 KB.
To get a different frame, or every frame as its own page, save the frames as separate images in an image editor first, then add those here. This tool does not split animations.
Small GIFs on a large page
Many GIFs are small, a few hundred pixels across. On the default A4 page each picture is scaled up to fill the space, so that 480 by 270 animation frame is drawn with every GIF pixel about 1.75 points wide, roughly 41 pixels per inch. On screen that looks blocky, and printed it looks worse.
Fit to image avoids the enlargement by making the page the size of the picture, one point per pixel: 480 by 270 points, or about 6.7 by 3.75 inches. Use it whenever the GIF is small and the PDF is for reading on screen.
Colours, transparency and file size
The frame is stored in the PDF losslessly, so the 256 colours of the palette come through exactly, dithering and all. Nothing is smoothed or recoloured.
Transparent areas stay transparent, showing the white page behind them. GIF transparency is all-or-nothing for each pixel, so edges stay as hard as they were in the GIF.
A large still GIF can shrink a little: a 4032 by 3024 picture saved as a 256-colour GIF went from 4.1 MB to a 3.6 MB PDF.
Frequently asked questions
Its first frame becomes a single still page. The remaining frames are not included, because a page in a PDF cannot play an animation.
Not directly. Export the frames as individual images in an image editor, add them all here in order, and each one will get its own page.
It was enlarged to fill the page. A 480 pixel wide GIF on landscape A4 is drawn at about 41 pixels per inch. Choose Fit to image to keep it at its own size.
Only one frame is stored. A 30-frame, 318 KB animation became a 13 KB PDF because the other 29 frames are not in it.
No. The frame is saved without loss, so the PDF shows exactly the palette colours the GIF had, including any dithering pattern.
Yes. They show the white page behind them. Edges stay hard, since a GIF pixel is either fully see-through or fully solid.
Yes. Add them together, drag them into order, and leave "Merge into one document" ticked. Each GIF takes one page.
No. The first frame is decoded and placed on a page by the code in this tab, and the PDF is written in your browser’s memory.
Other formats
Related tools
This tool ran entirely in your browser and nothing was uploaded. Your Recent files list keeps a copy of local files under 5 MB until you clear it. How your files are handled.