Turning a fax or a multi-page scan into a PDF
TIFF is what scanners, fax software and document archives tend to produce, often with many pages inside one file. Many phones and email previews show only the first of those pages, or cannot show the file at all. Turning it into a PDF gives the recipient something every device opens, and the questions worth asking first are whether every page makes it across and whether anything about the scan changes.
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Which tool you need
A fax or a scanner's output with several pages in one file
TIFF to PDF. The pages are listed one by one, each named after the file with its page number, so a blank cover sheet or a duplicate can be taken out before the PDF is made.
An archive or an agency wants TIFF back from a PDF
PDF to TIFF goes the other way, drawing each page at the resolution you set. It saves one TIFF per page rather than a single multi-page file.
A scanned page that came out crooked
Make the PDF here, then open it in Scan to PDF, which can straighten the pages of a scanned PDF.
Print artwork that has to stay in CMYK
Export the PDF from the design program that made the artwork. This conversion keeps colors the way a screen shows them, which suits reading and is wrong for a press that asked for CMYK.
Scanned pages saved as a mix of TIFF, JPG and PNG
Image to PDF takes TIFF alongside the other common picture formats, so a mixed folder can become one PDF.
Which pages make it across
A TIFF can hold more than the pages you see. Some scanners and archive systems store a smaller copy beside each page for quick previews, and a careless conversion turns every one of those into an extra page. Copies the file marks as reduced-resolution are left out here, so a ten-page scan gives ten pages.
Pages arrive in the order the file stores them, and a page the scanner recorded as turned is placed upright, following the orientation noted in the file. Every page counts toward the number of pictures your device can place in one PDF, so a very long TIFF can be refused whole rather than cut short.
What the scan keeps, and what it does not
Each page is decoded on your device and stored without loss, so nothing is blurred or compressed again on the way, and fine print on a scanned contract stays exactly as legible as it was.
Color is the exception that matters to print shops: pages are kept in the colors of a screen rather than in CMYK. And a scan is a picture of a page, so the words on it cannot be searched or copied in the result.
When a TIFF will not open
TIFF is less one format than a container for several ways of storing pixels, and older or specialized equipment sometimes uses one this site's decoder does not read. A file like that is refused when you add it rather than becoming a blank page.
Opening it in the program that made it, or in any viewer that shows it correctly, and saving a fresh copy in a common form is usually all it takes.
What to know before you start
- A TIFF stored with a rare compression may be refused until it is saved again from another program.
- CMYK color is not kept, so the result suits reading and office printing rather than a press.
- No text is read off the scanned pages.
- A TIFF whose pages together exceed what your device can hold is refused before any page is decoded.