Whole pages instead of embedded original images
The tool draws each selected page in full onto a white background and saves it as an image. This includes text, lines, background and the photos placed on the page. Think of it as a screenshot of each page at a fixed resolution. You always get the whole page, not the individual image files that were inserted when the PDF was created.
Pulling out embedded original images is a different process. It would save the photos as they are stored in the PDF, without the surrounding text. The tool does not offer this extraction. A photo appears in the result only at the size it takes up on the page, converted using the selected DPI value. A higher DPI value makes the image of the whole page larger, but it does not bring out the embedded original file. It is therefore not guaranteed that a photo printed small on the page will reach its original pixel dimensions. Details that are already missing from the photo in the PDF will not appear even at 300 DPI.
Example: A three-page PDF contains a heading, some text and a small photo on each page. You select pages 1 and 3.
- Two image files are created, one for page 1 and one for page 3.
- Each image shows the complete page with the heading, text and photo in place.
- No separate file containing only the photo is created.
- The text is part of the image content and cannot be selected.
Perhaps you still need the pages with selectable text, for example for quoting or forwarding. In that case, an image is the wrong target, and you can extract the pages as a PDF instead of as images. Clickable links are not guaranteed there, however, because the pages are transferred into a new PDF. If the links matter, check them in the saved file or keep the original PDF for that purpose. If you later convert the images back into a PDF, selectable text and links do not come back.
Choose pages and save them as images
You can use a PDF of up to 50 MiB and 250 pages. The tool rejects some files before it converts any page: PDFs with form fields, digital signatures, encryption, file attachments, portfolios or layers.
- Select your file using “Choose PDF”.
- Specify which pages you need. If you leave the “Pages” field empty, all pages are converted. To make a selection, type page numbers and ranges, for example 1, 3, 5-7. You can also click the pages under “Click to select pages”.
- Choose JPG or PNG as the image format and a resolution of 96, 150, 200 or 300 DPI. The defaults are JPG and 150 DPI. For JPG, you also set the JPG quality between 40 and 100 %. The default is 90 %.
- Click “Create images”.
- Check each result individually: the preview shows the width × height of the image in pixels. If only one image is created, you see its preview directly. If there are several images, you select them one after another under “View output file”.
Pages are counted from 1, in the order in which they appear in the file. If you type the numbers, your order also applies to the images: with 3, 1, 2, the image of page 3 is created first. Pages you click, by contrast, are sorted in ascending order. Each page may appear only once. This also applies to overlapping ranges.
“Select all” marks every page, and “Clear selection” removes all marks. After clearing, the conversion only starts once you select pages again. If you then edit the pages field and leave it empty, all pages are converted again.
Exactly one image is created from each selected page. Multiple pages are not combined into one long overall image: if you select five pages, you get five files.
The image keeps the orientation that the page has in the PDF. If a page appears sideways or upside down in the result, you can orient the PDF correctly first and then convert it again.
If you change the file, the format, the resolution or the page selection after creating the images, the previous download links no longer work. So save the images you already need first, or create them again with the new settings.
JPG or PNG: which format fits?
Both formats contain the same image of the page. They differ in how the pixels are stored.
For PNG, lossless refers only to the page image: the pixels created during conversion remain unchanged. The properties of the PDF are still lost. In a PNG, too, text is only image content, vector graphics can no longer be enlarged freely, and anything that was blurry in the PDF does not become sharper. Neither format replaces color-accurate print preparation with a CMYK check.
No general rule says which format produces the smaller file, because that depends on the content of the page. If size matters to you, convert a typical page in both formats and compare the saved files.
Understanding resolution and pixel dimensions
A PDF page has a fixed size measured in points. 72 points equal one inch, which is 2.54 cm. The DPI setting determines how many pixels per inch are generated for this page. This gives the image size: width in pixels = page width in points ÷ 72 × DPI. You calculate the height the same way. The tool rounds the result up to whole pixels.
With a higher DPI value, the same page gets more pixels in both width and height. This is why the total number of pixels grows with the square: twice the DPI gives four times as many pixels.
Going from 150 to 300 DPI, the width doubles from 450 to 900 pixels and the height doubles from 600 to 1,200 pixels. The total, by contrast, rises from 270,000 to 1,080,000 pixels, which is fourfold. The table does not show how many kilobytes the file has. That also depends on the content, the format and, for JPG, the quality.
At 300 DPI, an A4 page gives 2,481 × 3,508 pixels here. Other calculations often arrive at a width of 2,480 pixels because they assume exactly 210 mm and round to the nearest whole number. The tool, by contrast, always rounds the actual page size up. If you use the calculator to calculate pixel dimensions and print size, the result may therefore differ by one pixel. Your PDF may also have different page dimensions or a rotation. The dimensions shown in the preview for each individual image are the reliable ones.
No resolution fits every case. If a portal or recipient requires a minimum width in pixels, choose the lowest setting that reaches that width. For A4 portrait, you can find the values in the table above. For a printout, work backwards from the print size you want. More DPI produce more pixels and need more storage, but they do not add new details. A blurry scan stays blurry and just consists of more pixels. Even 300 DPI therefore do not guarantee a good print. For printing, the pixel dimensions are what count. If needed, you can check in your image editor whether the saved file also contains a matching DPI value.
Telling the pixel limit apart from the total data limit
Two limits can stop a conversion. They have different causes, so different solutions help.
- Pixel limit per page: a single page image may have at most 16,000,000 pixels. Whether this limit is reached depends only on the page size and the DPI value, not on the file size of the PDF. A lower DPI setting solves this.
- Total data: all generated images together may be at most 100 MiB. Here it helps to convert fewer pages at once, set a lower JPG quality or reduce the DPI. If you chose PNG, you can also try JPG.
A lower JPG quality only reduces the amount of data. The width and height of the image stay the same, so a lower quality does not help with the pixel limit. On devices with little memory, the conversion can also stop before these limits are reached. In that case, a lower resolution or fewer pages also help.
Calculation example, calculated and not measured: even at 300 DPI, an A4 page is well below the limit at 8,703,348 pixels. An A3 page (841.89 × 1,190.55 points), on the other hand, would come to 3,508 × 4,961 = 17,403,188 pixels at 300 DPI. It would be rejected, even if the PDF is only a few kilobytes in size. At 200 DPI, the result is 2,339 × 3,308 = 7,737,412 pixels, and the page fits.
What is lost when exporting to an image
In the finished JPG or PNG, letters are no longer characters but colored pixels. That is why you cannot select, copy or search the text in the image. Links from the PDF are still visible in the image, but they are no longer clickable. Lines and logos can no longer be enlarged without losing quality.
Example: An invoice contains a clickable web address for payment in its footer. In the JPG, the address appears in the same place, but clicking it opens nothing. Anyone who wants to reuse the invoice amount has to type it out.
Converting the images back into a PDF does not undo this. If you want to combine the images back into a PDF, the new PDF consists only of image pages. The text remains image content, and links and vector graphics do not come back. Text recognition (OCR), which turns pixels back into selectable text, is not part of these tools.
So keep the PDF if you will need the text, links or formatting later. An image works well when a page only needs to be viewed, shown or uploaded somewhere that explicitly requires an image.
Save images individually or as a ZIP
How you save the results depends on how many pages you converted. For a single page, you get a direct download link for the image. For multiple pages, each image has its own link, and “Download all files as ZIP” also appears.
The ZIP file only bundles the images. It contains the same JPG or PNG files that you can also download individually. The format and content of the images remain unchanged.
Example: You convert pages 3 and 1 of beispiel.pdf, in that order, to JPG. The following files are then available for download:
- beispiel-seite-3.jpg
- beispiel-seite-1.jpg
- beispiel-ergebnisse.zip containing both images
The page number in the file name always refers to the page in the original PDF, even if you entered your own order. This lets you recognize each page later. Special characters in the file name may be replaced with simpler characters. If the ZIP archive cannot be created, you see a message. You can still download the individual images.
Before you send a ZIP file, check whether your recipient or the upload form accepts ZIP. Some forms explicitly require individual image files. In that case, download the pages using the individual links. On a smartphone, you can find the saved ZIP file in your browser's downloads or in your device's file manager. How you open it there depends on the system.
After saving, open at least one downloaded image, not just the preview in the browser. Check that it is the right page, that everything is legible and that the pixel dimensions are correct.