JPG vs PNG vs PDF: Which File Format Should You Use?

JPG, PNG and PDF are the three file types you meet most often when sharing photos, screenshots and documents. Choosing the right one can make a file ten times smaller, keep text sharp, or decide whether a form accepts your upload at all.

JPG (or JPEG): best for photos

JPG and JPEG are the same format. The two spellings exist only because older versions of Windows allowed three-letter file extensions. A .jpeg file can be renamed to .jpg and nothing changes.

JPG uses lossy compression: it permanently removes fine detail that the eye is unlikely to notice in natural images. This makes photos very small. A photo that would be 20 MB uncompressed can be 2 MB as a high-quality JPG, or 200 KB at a lower quality.

Good for: camera and phone photos, profile pictures, and photos for online forms.
Not good for: screenshots, text, logos and line drawings. Sharp edges get blurry "halos" around them.
No transparency: transparent areas become a solid color, usually white.
Re-saving loses quality: every time a JPG is edited and saved again, a little more detail is lost. Keep the original.

PNG: best for screenshots, logos and text

PNG uses lossless compression: every pixel is stored exactly. Text, lines and flat colors stay perfectly sharp.

Good for: screenshots, logos, icons, diagrams, images containing text, and anything that needs a transparent background.
Not good for: photos. A PNG photo is often 5–10 times larger than the same photo as a JPG, with no visible benefit.
Supports transparency: ideal for logos you place on colored backgrounds.

PDF: best for documents

PDF isn't really an image format. It is a document format that can hold text, images and fonts across many pages, and it looks the same on every device and when printed.

Good for: certificates, applications, CVs, invoices, multi-page scans, and anything that will be printed.
Multiple pages in one file: combine all the pages of a scanned document instead of uploading many images.
Not good for: places that expect an image, such as profile pictures, social media posts and most "upload photo" fields.

Side-by-side comparison

	JPG / JPEG	PNG	PDF
Compression	Lossy	Lossless	Depends on contents
Photo file size	Small	Large	Medium
Sharp text and lines	Can blur	Perfect	Perfect (if real text)
Transparency	No	Yes	Yes
Multiple pages	No	No	Yes
Accepted by photo upload forms	Almost always	Often	Rarely

Which format should I choose?

You have…	Use
A photo for a form, email or social media	JPG
A screenshot with text	PNG
A logo, or an image that needs a transparent background	PNG (or SVG for print)
A document with several pages	PDF
A document to print or send officially	PDF
A PDF page you need to post as an image	Convert PDF to JPG or PNG

Convert JPG, PNG and PDF in any direction

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Common myths

"Converting a JPG to PNG improves its quality"

No. The detail removed when the JPG was created is gone for good. Converting to PNG keeps the image exactly as it is now, just in a larger file. Convert JPG to PNG only when a website requires PNG.

"PDF makes images smaller"

Not by itself. A PDF containing a photo is roughly as large as that photo. To make it smaller, compress the image first, then put it in a PDF.

"PNG is always better because it's lossless"

For photos, lossless just means a much bigger file that looks the same. Use the format that fits the content.

What about WebP and SVG?

WebP is a newer format that is often smaller than both JPG and PNG and supports transparency. Most browsers support it, but many upload forms still don't accept it. SVG is a vector format for logos and icons that stays sharp at any size. It is ideal for printing QR codes and logos, and our QR Code Generator can export it.

Summary

Use JPG for photos, PNG for screenshots, logos and text, and PDF for documents. When a website asks for a different format, convert instead of renaming the file: changing .png to .jpg in the file name doesn't change the format inside.