How To Display A Pdf File In Android App

You've taken pictures of a paper document using your Android phone, and now you need to send it to someone. We'll show you an easy way you can convert these images to a PDF file to make it easier to share this document.

RELATED: The Best Ways to Scan a Document Using Your Phone or Tablet

Ideally, you'd photograph those documents using a document scanner app, which would turn them into a PDF automatically. But if you took the pictures and didn't think to download a document app, this method will work just fine. You can also combine images into a PDF file in Windows and on a Mac, which is somewhat easier than on Android.

We're going to use a free app called Image to PDF Converter, so install the app from the Play Store and then either open it from the Play Store page or tap on the icon that's added to the Home screen.

A blank white screen displays with a toolbar at the top. To add images you want to convert, tap the plus sign icon on the toolbar.

Folders on your device containing images are listed. Tap on the folder containing the images you want to include in your PDF file.

To select the images, click the selection button at the top of the screen.

All the images are selected. If you want to leave some images out, simply tap on them to deselect them. When you've selected the images you want, tap the check mark icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.

The files are added in order based on the file names. To reorder them differently, tap the sort icon on the toolbar.

Say you want to reverse the order of the image files. On the Sort dialog box, tap the "File Name (Z to A)" selection bubble. To go back to the original sort order, tap "File Name (A to Z)". You can also sort by File Time, beginning with the oldest (File Time with the down arrow) or the most recent (File Time with the up arrow).

You can also manually reorder the image files by tapping and holding on the three-bar icon with the up and down arrows for an image file and dragging it up or down to move it to a different place in the list.

Once you've set the order of your image files, tap the "PDF" button on the toolbar.

You can either choose not to resize the images or you can set specific maximum sizes for the width and height of each image. We chose to leave the images as they are. Tap "Save PDF" to create the PDF file.

The Done screen tells you how many pages are in the PDF file and where the PDF file was saved on your device. You can either tap "Send to" to share the PDF file in one of many ways, or "Open PDF" to open the PDF in any app on your device that will read PDF files.

RELATED: How to Easily Select Your Default Apps in Android 6.0 Marshmallow

For example, first we'll open the PDF file to see how it turned out. When you tap "Open PDF", a popup displays with all the options available on your device for viewing PDF files. The option last used (if you've opened any PDF files before from this app) is listed at the top of the popup. If you want to use that app, simply tap "Just Once" to open the PDF file using this app just this time, or tap "Always" if you want to use that app every time to open PDF files. You can change default apps in Android 6.0 Marshmallow at any time. To view the PDF file using a different app, pull up on the popup with your finger to expand the menu and select an app from the list.

In our example, we opened the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat.

Once you're sure the PDF file looks good, use the back button on your device to return to Image to PDF Converter. At this point, you could use the "Send to" button on the Done screen to send the PDF file to someone, but you may have noticed that when the PDF file is created, it's labeled with the date and a number. Before sharing the file, it might be useful to rename it with a descriptive name.

To rename the PDF file, tap the "PDF files" icon on the toolbar.

A list of all the PDF files you've generated in the Image to PDF Converter app displays. Select the PDF file you just created by tapping on the selection bubble to the right of the file name.

Then, tap on the rename icon on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

On the Rename File dialog box, enter a new name for the PDF file in the "New filename" edit box and tap "OK".

The new name displays in the list. To share the PDF file, make sure the file you want to share is selected (the selection bubble for that file should be blue) and then tap the share icon on the toolbar.

The "Share with" popup menu displays. Pull up with your finger on the menu to expand it and tap on the app you want to use to share the PDF file. For example, if you want to email the file, tap on the email app you use. Or, you can upload it to Dropbox and then share the location.

Then you can get that PDF where it needs to go, and no one has to shuffle through a series of JPEGs to read your document.