Images to an A4 Grid PDF

How it works

Choose your images from the box or click to pick them, decide how many belong on each page and press the button. They are placed in the order the list shows them: in the two-up layout on the top and bottom halves of the page, in the four-up layout from left to right and then top to bottom. Every image is fitted into its own cell with its proportions intact and centred there, and 12 points of padding are left inside each cell, so pictures touch neither one another nor the edge of the paper. The page count is a plain division: six images make three pages at two per page and two pages at four per page, and the last page may be left half full, where the empty cells simply stay white. The quality slider decides how hard each image is compressed as it is embedded into the document; for receipts and bank slips going into an archive, 85 percent keeps them readable while holding the file to a sensible size.

This tool is also known as photo grid pdf, contact sheet pdf, 4 images per page pdf, multiple photos on one pdf page, receipt archive pdf.

What is A4 grid layout?

A grid layout divides the page into equal cells and places one item in each; printers have called the same idea imposition for centuries. Here an A4 page is split into one, two or four cells, and the images fill them in list order, left to right and then top to bottom. What the grid buys you is not only paper: because every cell is identical, photographs of different shapes still line up with one another, and the eye can read the page row by row instead of hunting across it.

What is PDF point (pt)?

Length inside a PDF is measured in points, and one point is a seventy-second of an inch. That is why an A4 page is defined as 595×842 points in the file: 210 millimetres is about 8.27 inches, and 8.27 multiplied by 72 gives 595. A point is not a pixel — it is a physical measurement, while a pixel depends on the screen displaying it. The 12-point padding this tool leaves inside every cell is therefore roughly 4.2 millimetres, and it really occupies that much of the paper.

What is Fitting into a cell?

Fitting means placing an image inside a rectangle without distorting it: a scale is worked out separately for width and for height, and the smaller of the two is used, so no edge can overflow. Whatever space is left over stays empty and the image is centred within it. The alternative, filling, leaves no gap but cuts the edges off the picture. On a photograph of a document that is unacceptable, since a total or a signature often sits right at the margin, so this tool always fits.

Grid PDF or contact sheet — what is the difference?

A contact sheet comes from the darkroom: an entire roll printed at thumbnail size on one sheet, twenty or thirty frames to a page, usually with the file name under each frame, so a photographer can choose which negatives are worth enlarging. A grid PDF has a different purpose, because the images have to stay readable. One, two or four to an A4 page leaves each picture large enough to read a receipt total or a shipping label — exactly what a contact sheet cannot do. This tool builds the second kind: no file names are printed under the images, and the cells are big enough that the documents inside them can be read on screen and after printing.

Why more than one image per page

Giving every photograph a page of its own turns thirty pictures into a thirty-page PDF. Printing that wastes paper, emailing it runs into attachment limits, and the person receiving it has to scroll through thirty pages to read thirty short documents.

Small documents — receipts, bank slips, shipping labels — already fit comfortably into half of an A4. Two or four to a page delivers the same content on a quarter of the paper, and expense files handed to an accountant or record photographs taken by a field team are far quicker to scan through in that form.

Which layout suits which document

The shape of the document decides the layout. Anything long and narrow, such as a till receipt or a bank slip, keeps its width in the two-up stack; anything square or landscape, such as a photocopied card or a site photograph, leaves no wasted space in the 2×2 grid.

• Till receipt, bank slip → 2 per page, portrait
• Shipping label, small invoice → 4 per page grid
• Landscape site photograph → 4 per page, landscape
• Single-page contract photograph → 1 per page, full page

Order and naming

Images are laid out in the order you selected them. With a large batch the surest way to control that order is to name the files 01, 02, 03 and select them all in one go, because the system then hands them over sorted by name.

To change the order afterwards, remove a file with the × button in the list and add it again; the file you re-add goes to the end of the list, which is enough to move one picture where you want it.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know how many pages I will get?

Divide the number of images by the number per page and round up: ten images at four per page make three pages. You do not have to do the sum yourself — the result line spells the breakdown out once the document is built.

What happens if the last page is only half full?

The empty cells stay white and the page is still produced as a full A4. Printed out, that area comes through as blank paper; nothing is stretched or rearranged to fill the gap.

Are the images cropped?

No. Each image is fitted into its cell with its proportions untouched, and whatever room is left over stays as white space. Nothing is trimmed from the edges, which matters when the edge of a receipt holds the total.

Can I mix images of different sizes and shapes?

Yes. Every image is fitted to its own cell by its own calculation, so a portrait photograph and a landscape one can sit side by side on the same page without either being distorted.

Is the output suitable for printing?

Yes, the page really is A4 — 595×842 points. The 12 points of padding inside each cell already allow for the printer's own unprintable margin, so nothing runs off the edge of the sheet.