How to Convert PDF Pages to Images?

Published by Xoupai Editorial Team · Document Management

PDFs are great for documents, but they are terrible for sharing on social media or inserting into a PowerPoint presentation. Often, you just need one specific page as a JPG image.

Here are the best ways to get that image, ranging from "quick and dirty" to "professional quality."

Method 1: The Screenshot (Fastest)

If you just need a low-resolution image for a quick WhatsApp message:

  1. Open the PDF and zoom into the page until it fits your screen.
  2. Windows: Press Windows + Shift + S to use the Snipping Tool.
  3. Mac: Press Cmd + Shift + 4 to select the area.

Downside: Resolution is limited by your screen. Not good for printing.

Method 2: Adobe Acrobat Pro (Best Quality)

If you have the paid version of Acrobat, this is easy:

  1. Open the file.
  2. Go to File > Export To > Image > JPEG.
  3. Click Settings to choose resolution (select 300 dpi for print).

Method 3: ImageMagick (Free & Bulk)

If you have 100 PDFs to process, clicking buttons is slow. Use the command line tool ImageMagick (requires installation).

Run this command in your terminal:

magick -density 300 document.pdf page-%03d.jpg

This tells the computer: "Read document.pdf at 300 dots per inch density, and save every page as a separate numbered JPG file."

Summary

For one page? Screenshot it. For a whole book? Use automation tools. Converting PDFs frees your content from the document format, making it shareable everywhere.