It fits in an email
Mail servers reject a folder of several hundred files. One PDF attaches, sends and opens, on a phone as easily as on a hospital desktop.
Free · private · in your browser
DICOM to PDF converter
Turn the disc from the hospital into one document you can email to a doctor, upload to a patient portal or print, with the brightness and contrast your scan was meant to be viewed at. Everything runs on your computer. Nothing is uploaded.
Drop your DICOM files, study folder or .zip here
Nothing is uploaded. Files are read and converted on this computer.
Page layoutA contact sheet keeps a long study to a few pages small enough to email.
CT presets
100% local: your files are read and converted in your browser and never uploaded.
Why bother
Because a folder of .dcm files goes nowhere
Your scan is already yours. The trouble starts the moment you try to send it to somebody: nothing on the receiving end knows what a DICOM file is. A PDF is the format that actually arrives.
Portals accept it
Patient portals, referral forms and insurance uploads take PDF and very little else. DICOM is almost never on the list.
Nothing to install
The person you send it to needs no DICOM viewer, no plugin and no instructions. They already have something that opens a PDF.
Long studies
300 slices, 25 pages
One image per page is right for an X-ray or a few key slices. It is useless for a full CT stack, which is why most converters produce a document nobody can send. Switch to the contact sheet and twelve slices go on each page instead.
Still full resolution
Each slice is embedded at its original size, not shrunk to fit the cell, so a reader can zoom into any one of them.
Labelled as it goes
Every image carries its modality, series and position in the run, so the doctor opening it knows what they are looking at.
In the right order
Slices are sorted into acquisition order before anything is written, so the stack reads top to bottom the way it was scanned.
Image quality
Not the flat grey other converters give you
A DICOM pixel is 12 or 16 bits; a PDF image is 8. Something has to decide which slab of that range to keep, and a converter that simply stretches the whole thing turns a chest CT into fog. This one starts from the window stored in your file, the same numbers a radiologist's viewer reads, and lets you change it with the preview in front of you.
Your file's own window
WindowCenter and WindowWidth are honoured first, so the default already looks like the scan you were shown.
CT presets
Soft tissue, lung, bone and brain, one click each, when the stored window is not the one you need.
Every format decoded
Uncompressed, RLE, JPEG baseline and lossless, JPEG-LS, JPEG 2000 and HTJ2K, plus colour and palette images.
Be clear about this
A PDF is for sharing, not for reading
The convenience costs the two things that make DICOM diagnostic. It is worth knowing exactly what you are giving up, so keep the original files and send those as well whenever the other side can take them.
Loses the bit depth
16-bit pixels become 8-bit. The window you chose is baked in, and nobody downstream can re-window to separate bone from soft tissue.
Loses the metadata
Scanner, sequence, slice position, spacing and study identifiers all live in the DICOM header and do not survive the conversion.
Keeps burned-in text
Details printed into the pixels, common on ultrasound, stay visible. Check the pages before you send them anywhere.
Privacy by design
Your images never leave your device
Decoding and PDF writing both happen locally in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to DocOrbit or any third party, and nothing is stored on a server. If you later request a second opinion, your imaging is encrypted in transit and at rest and isnever used to train AI models.
No upload
Files are opened directly by your browser. They never touch our servers, which is not true of most free PDF converters.
No account, no watermark
No sign-up, no email, no watermark stamped across your scan, and no limit on pages or file size.
Works offline
Once the page has loaded you can disconnect entirely and it still converts.
DICOM to PDF FAQ
Are my images uploaded?
No. The files are read, decoded and written into the PDF entirely inside your browser, on your own computer. Nothing is sent to DocOrbit or any third party and nothing is stored on a server. Once the page has loaded you can go offline and it still works. That matters more here than for an ordinary file converter: a scan is health data, and most free PDF sites work by uploading your file to theirs.
How do I turn the CD from the hospital into a PDF?
Copy the folder off the disc, or keep the .zip if you were sent one, and drop the whole thing here. You do not need to find the images yourself. Every DICOM file is located, sorted into acquisition order and written into a single PDF, and anything that is not an image (a README, an autorun file, a viewer the hospital bundled) is skipped and reported.
My CT has 300 slices. Do I get a 300 page PDF?
Only if you ask for one. The default puts one image on each page, which is what you want for an X-ray, an ultrasound still or a handful of key slices. For a full stack, choose the contact sheet layout and 12 slices go on each page, so a 300 slice CT becomes about 25 pages instead of 300. It stays small enough to email and a reader can still zoom in, because each slice is embedded at full resolution.
Why not just send the DICOM files?
Send them if you can. The problem is that most places cannot take them: mail servers reject a folder of hundreds of files, patient portals and insurance forms accept PDF and little else, and the person at the other end usually has no DICOM viewer installed. A PDF opens on every phone, laptop and hospital desktop with nothing to install, which is why it travels when the original does not.
Will my CT look grey and washed out, like it does in other converters?
No. A DICOM pixel is usually 12 or 16 bits and a PDF image is 8, so something has to choose which part of the range to keep. Converters that just stretch the full range produce flat grey CT images. This one uses the WindowCenter and WindowWidth stored in the file, the same values a radiologist's viewer uses, and gives you sliders plus CT presets for soft tissue, lung, bone and brain if you want something different. You see the result in the preview before you convert.
Is there a watermark, a page limit or an account?
None of the three. No sign-up, no email, no watermark, and no cap on pages or file size. There is nothing to pay for, because the conversion costs us nothing: it runs on your machine, not ours.
Is the PDF good enough for a diagnosis?
No, and you should not treat it as one. The images inside are 8-bit and lossy: the brightness and contrast you picked are baked in, so nobody downstream can re-window to look at bone and soft tissue separately, and the header that records what was scanned and how does not survive. A PDF is the right thing for sharing, printing, filing and asking a question. For an actual read, keep the original DICOM and send that.
Does it remove patient details?
Partly, and not by design. Patient name and identifiers live in the DICOM header, which is not carried into the PDF, so they are not in the document's metadata. But anything burned into the pixels themselves, which is common on ultrasound and secondary capture images, stays visible. Look at the pages before you send them.
Which DICOM files are supported?
CT, MRI, X-ray, ultrasound, PET, mammography and secondary capture, whether uncompressed or stored as RLE, JPEG baseline, JPEG lossless, JPEG-LS, JPEG 2000 or HTJ2K. Colour ultrasound and palette-coloured nuclear medicine images keep their colour, and multi-frame loops contribute one page per frame.
Can a radiologist review my scan?
Yes. DocOrbit provides independent second opinions on radiology and nuclear medicine imaging, AI-supported and verified by a board-certified, subspecialty-matched radiologist, typically within 24 to 48 hours.
More free tools
All of them run in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Get a second read
Now that you can send it
A PDF gets your scan to a doctor. If you want it actually read, get an independent, AI-supported second opinion from a board-certified radiologist within 24 to 48 hours.