Add an image to a PDF
Drop a logo, stamp, photo or chart onto any PDF page, then drag and resize it. PNG transparency is preserved and nothing is uploaded.
- Runs in your browser
- Files are never uploaded
- Free, no account
Drop a logo, stamp, photo or chart onto any page, then drag and resize it. PNG transparency is preserved. Everything happens in this browser tab — you can turn off your network connection first and it will still work.
Putting a picture on a PDF page
- Drop the PDF in, then navigate to the page that needs the image.
- Press Image and choose the file. It lands in the middle of the page at a sensible size.
- Drag it into position and pull the corner handle to resize. The aspect ratio is yours to control — drag proportionally to keep it undistorted.
- Lower the opacity in the panel if you want it to sit behind the text as a watermark rather than on top of it.
- Apply and download.
Formats, and what happens to each
| Input | What we do | Result |
|---|---|---|
| PNG | Embedded byte-for-byte | Transparency preserved, no quality loss |
| JPEG | Embedded byte-for-byte | Original compression kept, not re-encoded |
| WebP, GIF, BMP | Decoded by the browser, re-encoded as PNG | Visually identical, slightly larger |
| SVG | Rasterised at its natural size, then embedded as PNG | Becomes a bitmap — export at 3× size first if it must print sharply |
| HEIC | Only Safari can decode it | Convert to JPEG on the device that took it, then come back |
Sizing an image so it prints sharply
PDF measures in points: 72 points to the inch, always. A logo you want to print two inches wide occupies 144 points on the page. For print you want roughly 300 pixels per inch of final size, so that logo should be about 600 pixels wide. A 4000-pixel photograph shrunk into the same 144 points wastes several megabytes and looks identical.
The reverse also catches people out: a 200-pixel logo stretched to two inches is printing at 100 DPI and will look soft, even though it looks perfectly crisp on a screen where the page is displayed at about 96 DPI. If a logo looks fine on screen and fuzzy on paper, this is why.
Common jobs
- Company logo on a letterhead. Place it once on page 1, top left, about 120–180 points wide. Use a PNG with a transparent background so it works on coloured stationery.
- An approval stamp. Photograph or scan the stamp, remove the paper with an image editor, place it at 60–80% opacity so the text beneath shows through slightly — that is how a real ink stamp looks.
- A photograph on an application form. Size it to the printed box exactly; the panel shows the object's position in points as you drag.
- A chart from a spreadsheet. Export as PNG at twice the size you need, then scale it down here. Screenshots of charts almost always print badly.
Related routes
To put the same mark on every page with tiling, rotation and opacity controls, use Watermark PDF. To build a PDF out of images rather than adding one to an existing document, use Images to PDF or JPG to PDF. To place a signature specifically — with a drawing pad and a transparent-background helper — Sign PDF is set up for that job.
Questions
Which image formats can I place?
PNG and JPEG are embedded byte-for-byte, so a JPEG photo keeps its original compression and a PNG keeps its alpha channel. GIF, BMP, WebP and SVG are decoded by your browser and re-encoded as PNG before embedding, which works but costs a little file size. HEIC from an iPhone will only decode on Safari — convert it first if you are on Windows or Android.
Does transparency survive?
Yes, for PNG. A logo with a transparent background sits directly on the page with no white card behind it. If your logo has a white rectangle around it, that is baked into the image itself, not something the PDF added — re-export it from your design tool with a transparent background.
How large should the image be?
A page is 72 points to the inch, so a 2-inch-wide logo occupies 144 points. For crisp printing you want roughly 300 pixels per inch of final size — about 600 pixels wide for that 2-inch logo. Anything larger than that is wasted bytes; anything much smaller will look soft in print even though it looks fine on screen.
Can I put the same image on every page?
Place it once, then repeat it per page — the editor keeps the image in memory so each placement reuses the same embedded copy rather than storing it again. If you want an image on every single page of a long document, Watermark PDF applies one in a single pass with tiling and opacity controls.