PDF to JPG

How to convert PDF to JPG

1. Drop your PDF. JPG is preselected, so there's nothing to change.
2. Choose a resolution. The default suits screens. Bump it up for print or for zooming.
3. Convert, then Download. One JPG per page, zipped when there's more than one.

When a page needs to be a picture

Plenty of forms and feeds want an image, not a document. A slide for a social post. A signed form for an app that only accepts photos. JPG is the safe answer: small files, and nothing refuses to open one.

It does soften hard edges, so a page of dense type or line art is better served by PDF to PNG. Going the other way, JPG to PDF turns photos back into a document. And if it's the words you want rather than the look of the page, Extract text hands you those.

Why JPG softens text, and when that matters

JPEG compression works by chopping the image into small blocks and describing each one as a combination of gradual waves rather than as individual pixels. For photographs this works remarkably well: real-world detail is mostly smooth gradients, so the description is compact and the eye can't see what was dropped.

Text is the opposite kind of picture. The edge of a letter is an abrupt jump from black to white, and describing an abrupt jump with smooth waves takes a great many of them. Discard some, as JPEG must, and the jump comes back with a faint ripple beside it. That is the grey haze you see around small type in a heavily compressed page, and around the thin rules of a table. It is worst at small sizes and on the sharpest content: 8-point type, hairline borders, line art.

In practice this means JPG is the right choice for scanned photographs, pages that are mostly imagery, and anything headed for a website or a social post where file size rules. For a page of dense text, a wiring diagram or sheet music, use PDF to PNG instead; it stores exactly what was drawn and has no artefacts at all. Rendering at a higher resolution also helps a lot, because the artefacts stay the same size in pixels while the letters get bigger.

One image per page

Every page of the document becomes its own JPG, numbered in order. A single-page PDF downloads as one image; anything longer arrives as a ZIP, because browsers won't save forty separate files without asking forty times.

Rendering happens on your device, which has one practical consequence: a long document at high resolution is real work for your machine, and a 300-page file at 4× may take a while on a phone. Nothing is uploaded, so nothing is queued behind other people's jobs either; it goes as fast as your hardware goes. If you only need a few pages, pull them out first with Extract pages and convert those.

Frequently asked questions