"Converting PDFs to Images"

By Ricky Snow
BCL Technologies
Issue 10 for 2007

If you receive a PDF page which has an image that you want to publish to the Web or include in an application, there are conversion utilities available to transfer your PDF to an image format. But which format is best? When would a PDF file be more suitable?

PDF or image? PDF clearly has its advantages. However, often you want to view the document quickly on the web, fax it, have a quick preview or archive it. For these purposes, an image is more convenient.

Different formats for different tasks. You can convert your PDF to a number of image formats including GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP and RAW. If you need to fax multi-page images, then pick TIFF. If you have a text document, pick TIFF or GIF (perfect for black and white images). If you have photos, pick JPEG or PNG which support image compression (RAW and BMP are uncompressed formats).

PDF to image tools. PDF2Image is a stand-alone command-line utility and a software component for conversions to standard image file formats while providing a wide range of options to control the output image size and quality. PDF2Image can also be used in server environments and is ideal for use in batch conversion workflows.

XpdfRasterizer allows you to convert PDF pages to standard formats. It also supports conversions to an OLE Picture object (COM version only) and to an in-memory bitmap (DLL version only). All of the above functions can generate monochrome, grayscale, and color bitmaps, at any resolution.

BCL Freebird allows you to convert your PDF file archives to TIFF, JPEG or BMP files, which support output resolutions up to 600 dpi and 16, 256, TrueColor and B&W output.

BCL’s easyPDF SDK allows you to do additional functions with your PDFs including, creating, modifying, merging and form filling your PDF, as well as convert PDFs to a variety of image formats.

For more, feel free to check out PDF Store's Convert PDF aisle or contact the PDF Store Support Team.