How to convert a PDF to PNG images
Updated
Contents
To convert a PDF to PNG, open PDF to PNG, add your PDF, choose a resolution, and press the Render button. Each page becomes one PNG picture of the whole page, with its text, drawings and photos together. A single page downloads as one PNG; more than one arrives as a ZIP.
PNG is lossless: every pixel is kept exactly, so small type and thin lines keep clean edges instead of the smudges JPEG compression can leave around them. The cost is larger files, and as with any picture of a page, the words in it can no longer be selected or searched.
The pages are drawn in your browser by pdf.js, a PDF renderer bundled with the site, so your PDF stays on your device and there is no account to create. Each PDF can be up to 100 MB.
Step by step
- 1Open the PDF to PNG tool.
- 2Drop your PDF on the panel that says “Drop your PDF here, or browse”, or click it to choose the file. Its name, page count and size appear once it has loaded.
- 3Under Resolution, pick Screen (96 DPI), High (150 DPI) or Print (300 DPI).
- 4Under Pages, keep All pages, or click Select pages and type the pages you want, such as 1-3, 5. Under Colour, keep Colour or pick Grayscale.
- 5Press the Render button. It counts the pages it will draw, so it reads Render 3 pages when three are chosen, and a progress count follows each page.
- 6Press Download PNG for a single page, or Download ZIP when there are several. Each of the first 24 pages also has its own download button on its preview.
Choosing a resolution
DPI is how many pixels each inch of the page becomes. Screen (96 DPI) suits a page read on a monitor or in a chat, High (150 DPI) is a sharper all-rounder, and Print (300 DPI) is for printing or zooming in on small print. Doubling the DPI roughly quadruples the pixels on a page, so files grow and rendering slows.
High is selected the first time you use the tool. After that, this browser remembers the resolution and colour you last rendered with in PDF to PNG or PDF to JPG, and a PDF of more than 60 pages opens at Screen, with a note saying why: every page is held in memory as an image, and a long document at a high resolution is the job most likely to run a browser tab out of memory. You can still pick another resolution before you render.
Neither side of a page image may exceed 5,000 pixels. At Print, a page longer than 16.6 inches on a side, such as a poster or a drawing, is rendered below the preset rather than failing, and the result says what resolution it got.
Choosing pages and colour
Select pages takes single pages and ranges separated by commas, the same way Extract Pages reads them: 1-3, 5 gives four pages, and 8- runs from page eight to the end. Only those pages are rendered, and the Render button counts them.
Grayscale draws the pages in shades of gray instead of colour. The files are still ordinary PNGs holding gray pixels, not one-channel grayscale images. If you need a gray PDF rather than images, Grayscale PDF makes one.
What you download
A one-page PDF saves as a single image named after the file: logo.pdf gives logo.png. With more than one page rendered, the images come in one ZIP, numbered with leading zeros so they sort in reading order: all pages of a 120-page manual.pdf give manual-png.zip, starting with manual-page-001.png. A page keeps its number from the document when you pick only some, so page 7 of that manual is manual-page-007.png.
Pages are painted onto white, so every PNG has a solid white background. If a picture inside the PDF cannot be decoded, it comes out blank while the rest of the page renders, and the result gives the number of images affected across the document.
PNG, JPG, or the images inside the PDF
PNG suits text, line drawings, charts and screenshots. For photo-heavy pages, PDF to JPG usually makes smaller files, with the same resolution and page choices.
Both draw whole pages. To save the photos embedded in a PDF at their own resolution instead of pictures of whole pages, use Extract Images, which also runs in your browser.
Common questions
Is my PDF sent anywhere when I convert it to PNG?
No. pdf.js draws the pages inside your browser tab and the PNG files are made there too, so the PDF stays on your device from start to finish.
Is PNG or JPG better for PDF pages?
PNG is lossless, which suits text, line drawings and flat colour. JPEG is built for photographs and usually makes smaller files from photo-heavy pages; PDF to JPG offers the same resolutions. Neither keeps the text selectable.
Can I convert just one page?
Yes. Click Select pages under Pages and type its number. A single page downloads on its own as a PNG and keeps its page number in the file name, as in manual-page-007.png.
Why does my PNG have fewer pixels than the DPI I chose?
Because the page is large. No side of an image may pass 5,000 pixels, so at Print a page longer than 16.6 inches is rendered lower, and the result panel says at what DPI.
Can it convert a password-protected PDF?
Not one that needs a password to open: it stops while loading and asks you to unlock it first. Unlock PDF removes the password if you know it, but it runs on our secure server rather than in your browser. A PDF that opens without a password and only restricts printing or copying converts like any other.