How to Add an Image to a PDF (Free, No Adobe Needed)

Adding an image to a PDF usually means one of two jobs. Either you want a picture on an existing page (a logo in the corner, a photo in a form, a stamp or a scanned signature), or you want a picture added as a page of its own (a receipt photo at the end of an expense report, a diagram between two chapters).

For the first job, the quickest free way is the FileNaut PDF Editor: open the PDF, click Image, pick your picture, drag it into place and save. It runs in your browser, so neither the PDF nor the image is uploaded anywhere. For the second job, turn the picture into a one-page PDF and merge it in, which takes about a minute with two free tools.

Both are covered below, along with Mac Preview, Word and Adobe Acrobat. We ran test images through the browser methods (a square logo with a transparent background, a tall photo, a wide banner) and checked the saved files, so the details about quality, transparency and file size come from real output rather than guesswork.

Best for: logos, photos, stamps and signatures placed on top of an existing page. Free, no account, no install.

1. Open the PDF Editor and drop your PDF onto the page, or click Browse Files.
2. If the image belongs on a later page, click that page in the thumbnail strip on the left first. The image is added to whichever page you are viewing.
3. In the tools panel, click Image, then Upload PNG / JPG, and choose your picture.
4. The image appears near the top-left corner of the page, selected. Drag it to where it should go.
5. Use the small toolbar above the image to size it: − and + shrink or enlarge it (from 50% to 400%), and the arrow buttons change the width and height of its frame.
6. Click the ✓ to deselect it. Add more images the same way if you need them.
7. Click Save PDF. Your browser downloads the edited file with edited_ in front of the original name.

What we checked in the saved files:

• The original page is untouched. The image is drawn on top. The text underneath stayed selectable and searchable, and the other pages came through unchanged.
• Proportions are kept. A square logo stayed square and a tall photo stayed tall. If you narrow the frame with the width buttons, the picture shrinks to fit inside it rather than being squashed, exactly as the preview shows.
• Transparent PNGs stay transparent, so a logo on a transparent background sits on the page with no white box around it.
• JPG photos are not recompressed. The saved PDF contained the original JPG byte for byte, so there is no quality loss. It also means the PDF grows by roughly the size of the photo, which matters for email (see the tips below).

Once saved, the image is part of the page content. Most PDF readers will show and print it but will not let anyone drag it around, which is what you want for a logo or a stamp. If you need to change it later, open your original PDF again and redo the edit.

Best for: attaching a photo, receipt, scan or chart as a full page, rather than placing it on top of existing content.

1. Open Image to PDF, add your picture and click Convert to PDF, then Download PDF. You now have a one-page PDF of the image.
2. Open PDF Merge and add your main PDF and the new image PDF.
3. Use the up and down arrows to put them in the right order. The image page can go first, last or anywhere between.
4. Click Merge PDFs, then Download Merged PDF.

In our test, a two-page document plus a photo came out as a three-page PDF with the photo as page three, at full quality.

One thing to know: Image to PDF makes each page exactly the size of the image, not A4 or Letter. A small image gives a small page, and a phone photo gives a very large one. On screen that is invisible because readers zoom to fit, and most print dialogs have a "fit to page" option. If the page must match the rest of the document exactly, place the image on a blank page with Method 1 instead. For more on turning pictures into PDFs, including several at once, see our image to PDF guide and how to merge PDF files.

Preview, the viewer built into every Mac, has no "insert image" button, but it can paste one:

1. Open the image in Preview, press Command + A to select all, then Command + C to copy.
2. Open the PDF in Preview, go to the page you want and press Command + V.
3. Drag the pasted image into position and resize it from the corners.
4. Use File → Export as PDF to save a copy.

To add the image as a new page instead, open the sidebar with View → Thumbnails and drag the image file into the thumbnail list where you want the page to appear.

We did not test these steps for this guide, and Preview's behaviour has changed between macOS versions. On some versions, a pasted image can still be moved in other PDF apps after saving, because Preview stores it as an annotation rather than as part of the page. If it must stay put, the browser method above draws it into the page itself.

Adobe Acrobat Pro and Standard can insert images directly: Edit a PDF → Add Image, pick the file, then click on the page where it should go. Acrobat also lets you replace or crop images that are already in the PDF, which the free methods here cannot do.

The catch is price. Image editing needs a paid Acrobat subscription. The free Acrobat Reader can view, comment and sign, but not insert images. If you only need to drop a logo or photo onto a page now and then, Method 1 does the same job for free. These steps are from Adobe's current interface, which we did not test for this guide, so menu names may vary with your version.

Word can open a PDF and convert it into an editable document. From there, Insert → Pictures works as it does in any Word file, and you save the result with File → Save As → PDF.

Use this only when you also want to change the text. The conversion rebuilds the layout, and complex pages (columns, tables, forms, scanned pages) often come back with shifted spacing, changed fonts or broken tables. For simply adding a picture, the browser method leaves the original page exactly as it was. If you are going the Word route anyway, our PDF to Word guide explains what survives the conversion.

• Shrink big photos first. Because the photo goes into the PDF unchanged, a 4 MB phone picture makes the PDF about 4 MB bigger. Run it through Image Resize or Image Compress before adding it. A picture that will print a few inches wide rarely needs to be more than 1,500 pixels across. If the finished PDF is still too big, use PDF Compress.
• Use a PNG for logos. PNG keeps sharp edges and transparent backgrounds. JPG suits photographs, and its file size is smaller for the same photo.
• Convert other formats first. The editor accepts PNG and JPG. An iPhone photo in HEIC format needs HEIC to JPG first, and a WebP image from a website needs WebP to PNG or WebP to JPG.
• Crop before you add. The free methods place the whole image. Trim away the edges you do not want in any photo editor first. Resizing inside the PDF only changes how big the image appears.
• Signing a document? A photo of your signature works, but PDF Sign lets you draw or type one instead. Our guide to signing a PDF walks through the options.
• Adding words as well? The same editor adds text. See how to add text to a PDF.
• Password-protected PDF? Editors cannot change a file they cannot open. Remove the password with Unlock PDF (you need to know it), make your edit, then add protection back with Protect PDF if you need it.

To put a picture on a page, open the PDF Editor, click Image, place it and save. To add a picture as a page of its own, use Image to PDF and then PDF Merge. Resize large photos before adding them, use PNG for logos, and keep your original file in case you want to change the image later.