How to convert a PDF to images

For a slide, a website, or anywhere a PDF will not embed, exporting pages as pictures is the practical answer.

Each page is rendered to a picture at the resolution you choose. Useful when something needs an image rather than a document — a presentation, a forum post, a page that will not embed a PDF.

Step-by-step

1. Add your PDF.
2. Choose a format. PNG for text and line art, JPG for photographic pages.
3. Choose a resolution. See below.
4. Convert and download.

Choosing a resolution

• 96 DPI — screen use, small files.
• 150 DPI — a good default; readable on screen and acceptable printed.
• 300 DPI — print quality, and much larger files.

Going higher than 300 rarely helps, because the limit becomes what was in the PDF rather than how finely you render it. Rendering a 150 DPI scan at 600 DPI produces a large file containing no additional detail.

PNG or JPG

PNG is lossless and keeps text edges crisp, which matters because JPEG compression puts visible haze around sharp black-on-white lettering. For a page that is mostly a photograph, JPG is much smaller and the artefacts do not show.

Rasterising is a one-way door

Most PDFs are vector: text is stored as characters with a font, and lines as coordinates. That is why they stay sharp at any zoom and why you can select a sentence out of one. Converting to images throws all of that away and keeps only a grid of pixels at whatever resolution you picked.

What you lose is everything that depended on the text still being text — searching, selecting, copying, screen readers, and reflowing on a small display. There is no conversion back; running the images through OCR produces a new approximation of the text rather than recovering the original. So keep the PDF. Export images from it for the job that needs images, and treat that export as a derivative rather than as a replacement.

What a resolution actually means in pixels

Resolution is easier to choose with the arithmetic in front of you. An A4 page is 8.27 by 11.69 inches, so at 150 dpi it comes out around 1240 by 1754 pixels, and at 300 dpi around 2480 by 3508. US Letter, being slightly wider and shorter, gives roughly 1275 by 1650 and 2550 by 3300.

150 dpi is comfortable for reading on screen and for a preview. 300 dpi is the usual floor for anything that will be printed, because that is roughly where print stops looking soft. Going beyond 600 rarely helps: the file size grows with the square of the resolution, so doubling the number quadruples the bytes, and past a point you are storing a very precise record of the printer's own limitations rather than any extra detail from the document.

Frequently asked questions

Which format for a text-heavy page?

PNG. JPEG compression leaves visible artefacts around sharp lettering, which is exactly what a text page is made of.

What resolution should I use?

150 DPI for general use, 300 for print. Above that you are usually enlarging the PDF's own limits rather than gaining detail.

Can I convert back to a PDF afterwards?

You can put the images into a PDF, but the text will not come back — it is a picture of text from then on.