Convert PDF to JPG or PNG?

**Johnsie** · November 25th, 2008

Hi, does anyone have any solution for converting a pdf to an image on Ubuntu?

Thanks in advance,

Johnsie

**kaibob** · November 25th, 2008

You can use the convert command-line utility. It's part of the Imagemagick suite and can be installed through synaptic.

To convert a PDF file to PNG format, the command would be:

Code:

convert infile.pdf outfile.png

The following page provides more detail:

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/convert.php

And, the following page lists formats supported by convert:

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/formats.php

**Johnsie** · November 26th, 2008

Thanks, that worked but the size of the image was alot smaller than the pdf. Is there a way to keep the same page dimensions?

**hyper_ch** · November 26th, 2008

open the pdf in gimp and save it as .jpg or .png

**phillies** · November 26th, 2008

or you can tell 'convert' which size

usually more dots per inch [dpi] works. I'm not sure what's convert's default value but 300dpi or 600dpi are in general good values as you convert vector graphics to raster graphics (that's why you can zoom in in good pdfs and it wont get pixely while it does on pngs)

Edit:
small example: An 8x11 letter/A4 (approx) with 72 dpi will result in a 576x792 pixel image -> quite crappy for a whole page, isn't it? Better with 300 dpi: 8x11 -> 2400 x 3300 pixel image, somehow better, isn't it?

**Dewni** · March 30th, 2009

This answer might be a bit late, but perhaps good for the archive. I had a similar problem before. Change a bunch of oddly sized pdf documents to A4 format (portrait).

First, use pdftk to rotate the pictures:

Code:

pdftk your_input_file.pdf cat 1-endW output rotated.pdf

Then, use imagemagicks convert to generate a ps file, I used -density 300 to get a resonable 300dpi resolution, you might want more or less.

Code:

convert -density 300 rotated.pdf rotated.ps

And finally, use ghostscript to get everything in A4 format

Code:

gs -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -sOutputFile=output.pdf rotated.ps

Of course this can be done using other tools, but I am very happy with all these utilities and the fact that I can use them from the commandline.

**gusanto** · May 28th, 2009

I have 32 pages of pdf file and I want to convert it to png file with 4 images per page. Please show me how to do it. I have searched help but no luck.
Many thanks.

**XCan** · May 28th, 2009

Originally Posted by gusanto

I have 32 pages of pdf file and I want to convert it to png file with 4 images per page. Please show me how to do it. I have searched help but no luck.
Many thanks.

Perhaps you could open the pdf in evince, -> print to file -> page setup -> pages per side, and use 4? After the the new pdf with 4 pages per side has been created you can turn it into a png document using:

Code:

convert 4pages_per_side.pdf 4pages_per_side.png

**rocksockdoc** · November 30th, 2011

Originally Posted by Dewni

This answer might be a bit late, but perhaps good for the archive.

I just want to say thanks for adding answers 'for the archive'!

Googling brought me here to find out how to convert, rotate, and resize a PDF to JPG without losing the quality of the results (the key being keeping the quality to a reasonable level).

These three commands came in useful:

To convert a PDF to PNG with reasonable quality:
convert -density 300 file.pdf file.png

To rotate a PDF:
pdftk nonrotated.pdf cat 1-endW output rotated.pdf

To size a PDF to a desired size (this example is A4 but I would want 8.5x11):
gs -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.ps