Convert jpeg files to PDF under Linux

Posted by Thomas on February 8th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Tags: convert • linux • pdf • photo

How to convert jpg files to one PDF?

Requirements:

Linux
Ubuntu is my favorite. But you can use any other distribution.
ImageMagick
Type the follow line to Ubuntu commmand prompt for intall ImageMagick:
sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Convert from jpegs to PDF:

Go to the work directory (directory of jpegs):
cd work/directory/path
Convert the JPG files to PDF:
convert *.jpg foo.pdf

So easy, not?

Leave a comment if you can or can't convert your files?

Have you same problem in Windows? Download the PDFCreator. PDFCreator is a free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application that is able to print. (Not just JPG)

Another solution in Linux:

Any KDE application can print in PDF file (same method as PDFCreator). Select JPG-s and print in PDF.

Thank you so much!

Submitted by Rmitboy (not verified) on March 21, 2010 - 6:12pm.

Doesn't work for me. It says

Doesn't work for me. It says "segmentation error" after a long while... Is there a limit for the number of pictures to put ?

Submitted by max (not verified) on March 3, 2010 - 12:54am.

imagemagick considered inefficient

I should mention that the pdfjam solution is far more efficient than imagemagick, it seems. The former took my 69MB of files and gave me a 71MB PDF, while the latter gave me a 445MB (!) PDF.

Submitted by gwern (not verified) on February 19, 2010 - 4:46pm.

corrupt or damaged pdf

Hi
I tried that with the command line but every time my pdf is corrupt or damaged. If i convert one jpg file is ok if i convert multiple jpgs to a pdf file it gives me the damaged pdf file.

could you send me a replay to my email?

best regards
Sani

Submitted by Sani (not verified) on January 30, 2010 - 2:01pm.

Linux magic

Just magic. 'Have been working on Linux (Xubuntu) for over 2 years now, no looking back...

Thank you so much for sharing!

Submitted by Fred (not verified) on January 15, 2010 - 8:58pm.

Yes, this is a goal. Thahks!

Yes, this is a goal.
Thahks!

Submitted by Vladimir (not verified) on December 30, 2009 - 9:56am.

That is awesome! Thank you

That is awesome!
Thank you mate!

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on December 13, 2009 - 11:33pm.

It worked like magic

Thanks a lot.
It worked like magic.

Submitted by AJEDE (not verified) on November 24, 2009 - 8:03pm.

Works, but....

Hi Thomas,

First of all thank you very much for mentioning about this tool.

I installed it and converted a bunch of files. All went smooth.

But the size of the pdf files generated were huge. This tool has a "compress" option but I don't know what value to pass.

So, I tried the suggestion (given in one of the comments) to use F-Spot and it worked sweetly.

And I managed to add 10 jpg files to F-Spot and select them all, click print, and chose the option to print to a pdf file.

Done. My jpg files were converted and that too with much less size.

Thanks anyway for everyone who gave your valuable thoughts.

Submitted by James (not verified) on November 12, 2009 - 6:58am.

Thanks a lot. Everything

Thanks a lot. Everything works fine!

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on October 17, 2009 - 9:52pm.

Convert *.jpg into PDF files

I'm new in linux. I've tried to convert *.jpg files into pdf and it worked...

Submitted by CAML (not verified) on July 4, 2009 - 11:35pm.

These command convert *.JPG

These command convert *.JPG wathever.pdf works perfectly!!
Thanxxx!!!

Submitted by Al (not verified) on August 31, 2009 - 6:41pm.

An easy way to convert multiple jpgs to one pdf in linux

first, let us change the name of the jpgs to pdf:
prename 's/\.jpg$/\.pdf/' *.jpg
then, join them with pdfjoin:
pdfjoin *.pdf

Done :)

Submitted by Lior Zimmerman (not verified) on June 20, 2009 - 11:45am.

"Bestest" solution XD

Converting more than a few images can be a little tricky using only the command line. To batch convert them, use F-Spot.

1. Open F-Spot.
2. Add the images you want to convert, they must be in the order you want them.
3. Click print, and select "Print to file"

Your output will be the PDF file.

Submitted by Firefly (not verified) on April 13, 2009 - 9:41pm.

Or you could simply do this:

Or you could simply do this: for x in *.jpg; do convert $x `basename $x jpg`pdf; done

Submitted by Trond (not verified) on August 26, 2009 - 11:30am.

I tried to run this on 40

I tried to run this on 40 jpeg pages, and ran out of memory, had to add another 500MB of swap,
most of the images were at 300 dpi, vmsize went past 2.2GB

Submitted by mpcoc (not verified) on February 13, 2009 - 5:37pm.

If you want to convert

If you want to convert single file:
convert 000.jpg 000.pdf

But if you want to convert multiple jpgs to one PDF you have to add -adjoin param:
convert *.jpg -adjoin 000.pdf

It works on mine Ubuntu and it's what manual says about converting few images into multiimage PDF.

Submitted by Lukasz Rybka (not verified) on February 4, 2009 - 1:59pm.

jpeg to pdf

If there are text (as images) in jpeg does ImageMagick convert those to characters?

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on January 29, 2009 - 1:04am.

No, it doesn't convert those

No, it doesn't convert those to characters.

Submitted by Thomas on February 20, 2009 - 10:40pm.

works, but ran out of memory

I tried to run this on 40 jpeg pages, and ran out of memory, had to add another 500MB of swap,
most of the images were at 300 dpi, vmsize went past 2.2GB

Allen

Submitted by allen (not verified) on December 15, 2008 - 12:37am.

Yes, you need to add more

Yes, you need to add more swap if you haven't got enough memory. The convertion will be slower with swap, but convert process does not ran out of memory.

Thx your comment.

Submitted by Thomas on December 16, 2008 - 12:37am.

thanks. it works the way I

thanks. it works the way I expected. :D

Submitted by Ronah (not verified) on November 13, 2008 - 12:44pm.

doesn't work for me, says it

doesn't work for me, says it fails to find the file/directory...
i m doing something wrong, am i?

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on October 9, 2008 - 11:12am.

case sensitive

Hello,

Check your filenames. All file and directory name is case sensitive in linux. Check your command and modify it from *.jpg to *.JPG or something other correct extension.

Submitted by Thomas on October 17, 2008 - 10:25am.

amendium

It works...great. I was in the wrong directory the first time.

Submitted by matt (not verified) on August 27, 2008 - 8:35pm.

convert multiple files to one.

This doesn't work for me with the wild card, if I do convert *.jpg foo.pdf, I get "can't find *.jpg" I'm using ubuntu.

thanks
mbs

Submitted by matt (not verified) on August 27, 2008 - 8:32pm.

I got the same message first

I got the same message first try. Remember - case sensitive so try *.JPG

Submitted by Visitor (not verified) on September 1, 2008 - 6:45am.

Thank you