PDF to UDF Converter

Why convert a PDF to UDF?

Some UYAP screens accept only UDF as a petition or statement. The document you have is often a PDF: a petition prepared in another program, a letter from an institution, a contract or a scanned record. For a citizen contesting a traffic fine, this can be a real obstacle that ends in a missed deadline. This tool converts the PDF to UDF, and you can then open the file in the UYAP Document Editor and sign it.

The UDF files we produce were tested with UYAP Document Editor 5.4.20: they open in the editor and the text arrives complete. The UDF is unsigned, though; converting alone is not enough to submit it. This is general information, not legal advice.

Text mode or image mode?

The two modes answer different needs:

• Text mode (default): the lines of text in the PDF are read and turned into paragraphs; bold text and alignment are inferred. The result can be edited in the editor. It suits plainly laid-out documents produced on a computer, such as petitions, letters and contracts.
• Image mode: each PDF page is placed as a picture on its own page of the UDF. The appearance is kept exactly, but the text cannot be edited. It suits documents with complex tables, signatures and stamps, or scans.
• Text recognition (OCR): the writing on scanned pages is recognised and turned into editable text. Recognition is not error-free, so always read the result.
• If you are not sure, try text mode first and look at the preview; if the layout is broken, switch to image mode.

Scanned PDFs

PDFs created with a scanner or a phone camera contain no real text; each page is a photograph. Text mode cannot extract anything from such a file. When the tool notices this, it suggests image mode and a "Try with text recognition (OCR)" button. If you want editable text, choose the Text recognition (OCR) method in the settings. OCR also runs in your browser; the recognition files are downloaded from our own site once on first use. If the PDF's own font encoding has broken Turkish letters, the tool tries to correct the known broken mappings and reports it as a warning.

Size and page count

Image mode embeds each page as a picture, so the file can grow large. The tool draws pages at a resolution that stays readable but reasonable in size. We could not find an official, definitive figure for the largest file UYAP accepts; in long documents, consider splitting the PDF into parts before conversion. In the settings you can type a page range such as "1-3, 5" to carry over only the pages you want. In text mode, size is rarely a problem.

Password-protected PDFs cannot be opened, and the tool says so. Remove the password in a PDF program you have access to and try again.

Check in the editor, then sign

After downloading the UDF, open it in the UYAP Document Editor. In text mode, review the paragraphs, lists and tables; in image mode, check the page order. Then sign it with an e-signature or mobile signature. If your material is a photo or scan in JPG or HEIC rather than a PDF, the Turkish version of this site has a dedicated image-to-UDF tool. To go the other way and turn a UDF into a PDF, use UDF to PDF.

Which mode for which document?

This list is a starting point for common kinds of PDF:

• A petition saved as PDF from Word or another program: text mode.
• An official letter from an institution with a letterhead, signature and stamp: image mode, which keeps the look of the signature and stamp.
• A report or statement with many columns and complex tables: image mode.
• A PDF from a scanner or phone camera: image mode for the exact look, text recognition (OCR) for editable text.
• A long contract or a text-heavy decision: text mode first; switch to image mode if the preview looks broken.

Turkish characters in the PDF

Some programs write Turkish letters into a PDF using a non-standard encoding. Such a PDF looks right on screen, but when you copy the text, "ş" may turn into another symbol and "ı" into a blank. Text mode recognises these common broken mappings and tries to correct them, and when it does, it says so on the result screen. Still, when you open the UDF in the editor, review proper names and numbers. When the encoding cannot be corrected, image mode is the safest choice, because it transfers the page as it is.