How to convert
- Add one or more PDFs.
- Choose the resolution and JPEG quality.
- Click Convert to JPG. Pages are rendered one at a time; the progress bar shows which.
- Download each image, or all of them as a ZIP.
Images are named after the PDF with the page number, zero-padded so they sort correctly: report-page-01.jpg, report-page-02.jpg…
Choosing a resolution
A PDF page has a physical size; an image has pixels. The resolution, in dots per inch, decides how many pixels each inch of the page gets. An A4 page is 8.27 × 11.69 inches, so:
- 72 dpi → about 595 × 842 px. Fine for a quick look, a chat message or a thumbnail. Small text is hard to read.
- 150 dpi → about 1240 × 1754 px. Clear on any screen; the usual choice for sharing a page as an image.
- 300 dpi → about 2480 × 3508 px. Print quality; zoom into fine detail. Files are four times larger than at 150 dpi.
JPEG quality trades size for artefacts. 85 is visually clean; 70 is noticeably smaller with slight softening around text; below 60, text edges show blocky noise.
JPG or PNG?
JPEG is designed for photographs: it compresses smooth gradients well but blurs sharp edges slightly. Pages that are mostly photos convert to small, good-looking JPEGs. Pages that are mostly text or line drawings look crisper as PNG, and PNG is lossless, so nothing is lost at all, at the cost of bigger files. If you are not sure, convert to JPG at 150 dpi and look at a page with small print; if it looks soft, switch to PDF to PNG.
Common uses
- Forms that accept images only. Some upload forms take JPEG or PNG and refuse PDF. Convert, then upload each page.
- Social posts and slides. A page of a report as an image is easier to share than a PDF.
- Previews and thumbnails for a website or document library.
- Editing a page in an image editor when you only need to annotate or crop.
What you lose
An image is a picture of the page. Text in it cannot be selected, searched, copied or read by a screen reader, links do not work, and forms cannot be filled. Keep the PDF as the original and use the images for the job that needs them. To turn images back into a PDF, use JPG to PDF; the result will still be images, not text.
Large documents
Rendering is the slow part: a page takes a fraction of a second to a couple of seconds depending on its complexity, the resolution and your device. Pages render one at a time to keep memory use low, and if you ask for a very large job the tool estimates the memory needed and asks before starting. Cancel stops immediately and keeps the pages already converted.
On a phone
PDF to JPG works on a phone, and is handy for forms that accept photos but not PDFs. Choose the PDF, pick 150 dpi, convert, and save the images. On an iPhone, save each to Photos, or download the ZIP and open it in Files. Phones render pages more slowly than computers; a long document at 300 dpi can take a while, so convert only the pages you need by splitting first.
Colour and appearance
Pages are rendered by pdf.js, the PDF engine built into Firefox, on a white background, the way they print. Colours, fonts and layout match what you see in a browser's PDF viewer. Very unusual PDFs, such as ones with exotic colour spaces or damaged fonts, can look slightly different from Adobe Acrobat; if a page looks wrong, compare it in your usual viewer before relying on the image.
File sizes to expect
For an A4 page of mostly text, a JPEG at quality 85 is roughly 80–150 KB at 72 dpi, 200–400 KB at 150 dpi and 600 KB–1.2 MB at 300 dpi. Pages with photos are larger. If a form limits each image's size, start at 150 dpi and lower the quality before lowering the resolution.
JPEG opens everywhere: every phone, browser, email client and upload form accepts it, which is why it is the default choice for sharing pages as pictures.
Privacy: the file stays on your device
Online PDF services upload your document to their servers, process it there and keep it for a while. This tool does the work in your browser. The file is read into the page's memory, processed by open-source libraries (pdf-lib for editing and pdf.js for rendering) in a background worker, and the result is offered back as a download. Nothing is sent anywhere, there is no account, and closing the tab discards everything. You can check it: open your browser's developer tools, watch the Network tab while you run the tool, and you will see no upload. After the page has loaded once it also works offline.