How to convert a PDF to JPG

Resolution is the decision that matters

A PDF page is described in points, not pixels. Converting to an image means choosing how many pixels to draw per point, and that choice sets both the sharpness and the file size. The four settings offered map to familiar print resolutions: 72, 108, 144 and 216 dpi.

Screen resolution, 72 dpi, is right for a page you are pasting into a chat or a slide. It is not enough to read small print comfortably when zoomed.

The 108 dpi setting is the default and is a reasonable compromise for most uses. Go to 144 or 216 dpi if the result will be zoomed into, printed, or read by someone on a large display — and expect the file size to climb roughly with the square of the setting, so 216 dpi pages are about nine times the pixel count of 72 dpi pages.

On a phone, a very large page at a very high setting can exceed the memory the browser will allocate for a canvas. Rather than crashing the tab, the tool renders that page smaller than requested and tells you it did. If you see that message and need the full size, do it on a desktop.

What you lose by converting

This is a one-way conversion, and it is worth being clear about what it costs. Text stops being text. After conversion you cannot select it, search it, or copy a phrase out of it — a page of prose becomes a picture of a page of prose.

That is sometimes exactly what you want: an image cannot be reflowed, restyled or accidentally edited, and it displays identically everywhere without font substitution. It is also how people accidentally make a document unsearchable and unreadable to screen readers, so decide deliberately rather than by default.

There is no reverse path here. This toolkit has no OCR, so converting images back into searchable text is not something it can do, and it will not pretend otherwise.

Doing it

If you only want some pages as images, extract those pages into a smaller PDF first and convert that. It is quicker than converting everything and deleting the images you did not want.

1. Open the PDF Toolkit and select "PDF to images".
2. Choose the file. Every page is rendered; there is no page-range option in this operation.
3. Pick PNG or JPEG, and a resolution.
4. Convert, then download the ZIP. Pages are named page-001, page-002 and so on, so they sort correctly everywhere.

Worked example: a poster from page 1 of a twelve-page brochure

You need the cover of a twelve-page brochure as a single high-resolution image for a print layout, and nothing else.

1. Use "Extract pages" with 1 to produce a one-page PDF.
2. Switch to "PDF to images", load that one-page file.
3. Choose PNG and the 216 dpi setting.
4. Convert and download.

Result: A ZIP containing a single file, page-001.png. An A4 cover at 216 dpi is roughly 1785 by 2525 pixels — large enough to place in a print layout, and sharp at the edges of the type because PNG does not soften them the way JPEG does.

Open the tool

Convert a PDF to images in the PDF Toolkit

Renders every page to PNG or JPEG in your browser. It cannot convert images back into searchable text.

What this does not cover

• Every page is converted. There is no page range in this operation, so extract first if you want a subset.
• Text becomes pixels. The result is not selectable, not searchable and not accessible to a screen reader, and this toolkit has no OCR to convert it back.
• A ZIP is always produced, even for a one-page document.
• Very large pages at high resolution may be rendered smaller than requested to stay inside your device’s memory budget. The tool says when this happened.
• JPEG output is lossy at every quality level, so fine text on a JPEG page will show some softening around the letters.