Since I discovered PDF-XChange Viewer, which can be obtained as an Ad-Supported freeware from various sources eg Softpedia and made by Tracker Software Products Limited, I stopped using Adobe-Reader. PDF-XChange Viewer allows for easy conversion from the drop-down file menu. Select Export, Export to Image(s), and from there you have the following options:
Image Type:JPEG, JPEG2000, Bitmap, PNG, GIF, TIFF, PCX, TGA, DCX,PBM, PGM,JNG, WBPM,JBIG2, PPM.
Page Range: Allows for Selection of specific pages in a range(eg 1,3,5-7, 25,34-36) or a sequential range.
Graphics Option: Allows for selection of DPI resolution from 72dpi to 2400 dpi and Page Zoom from 1 to 100%.
There is also the option of selecting a Page background and a Destination Folder.
But best of all is that the picture quality is fab. Also found that image manipulation using other s-ware like PhotoShop or Corel is easier when the image is sourced from PDF-XChange Viewer that from other PDF readers.
Thanks Ashraf for your informative views,Just wondered why you did not mention it coz I actually got it from your website some time back.Thanks GAOTD.

Dear WXPSP3,
It is not FAIR when you say,
"Sorry, Ashraf, this time your review looks like promotion of eXPert PDF 5 Pro which is actially not freeware."
I have just downloaded the 'eXPert PDF 5 Pro' and successfully installied. It is absolutely free.Please avoid such biased comments.

I agree with Mr.Barry, that it is not much use for me to convert from PDF to JPG etc while eXPert PDF is much use for me. Thanks Mr Ashraf and GAOTD for providing the very good link which was so far unknown to me to get that eXPert PDF. Thanks again Ashraf and GOATD
kara

You ask why do you need this?
Because all you have is a PDF. A portable document.

A PDF is just a series of postscript commands built into several objects. You can't do much with it unless you have a piece of software that can alter that code (such as Adobe Pro). Even then there are severe limitations as what you can accomplish.
It's not a graphic. You can't make it bigger or smaller. Or crop it. Or cut a section out of it. Or use it as a watermark. Or stretch it. Or warp it. Or do the thousands of other things you can do with a graphic, with any of a hundred or so image editing programs.
How can you do all of those things? Convert it.

I tried to d/l & unzip *Three times* but still get the 'password protected' box.

I'd like to try out the s/w but apparently won't be able to.

Password protect a *readme* file? Ridiculous!
Even sillier when it's part of a *GIVEAWAY*

@1 , The good..... you pretty much just copied and pasted the developers own description. Thats hardly a review. Tell us stuff about the program that the dev hasn't already mentioned.

I find this program is just like any other pdf converter, just a slapped together program with poor output quality.

GAOTD, please notice the last paragraph in my previous review. That suggestion would eliminate malicious and frivolous ratings which in my view have been an ongoing problem at GAOTD

I also wanted to add to my review: The program is so easy to use that a help file isn't needed, it's explained on the 'Getting Started' screen, EXCEPT that screen should include one more instruction. Number 3 should be 'Settings: Type in Page Range and change DPI if needed'
After installing the software I was taken to a webpage where the software is being offered for limited time at a discount price which I recall was $29.95. I think that is a very good and reasonable price. For me personally, $49.95 is too expensive.

RE: comments about output resolution... please bear in mind that you can't really create something out of nothing, that results using PDF To JPG depends on the PDF files it's fed, & that judging quality levels is often subjective... The quality of an image in a PDF is determined first by the original image used [i.e. quality, dpi or ppi etc.], 2nd by the quality setting in whatever app created the PDF file. The quality of any image you get from converting/printing/taking a snap-shot of a PDF is not going to have more quality than the original file. That said, *If* you can access the actual image & text in a PDF, through printing or conversion, you may be able to get greater resolution than with a snapshot, which is limited to the actual pixels used on-screen for display.

* * *

#16: "... I can see 2 main uses for this software:... graphic artists sometimes get errors importing PDF files into their editing..."

Purely FWIW, PDF files are kinda like DVD & Blu-Ray discs in that most all the time the intent is to distribute content in it's final form -- IOW if you're handing off images or video etc. to someone else to work on or with, you're not going to give them video DVD/BD or a PDF, but instead will give them access to the original materials. It does happen, but AFAIK it's a bit rare for (semi) pro artists &/or graphics folks to get involved in re-purposing PDFs. That said, something like PDF To JPG (or using whatever for screen-shots) is useful if say you wanted to list available PDF files on your site & wanted icons featuring the title pages.

* * *

#19: "... i do not completely understand the utility of this. Wouldnt a printscreen copied into windows paint fulfil the same purpose..."

You can copy a screen-shot, or one of the active window [Alt + PrtScn] to Windows' clipboard, but you can only do it one at a time. The Snipping Tool in some Windows versions may work even better for some, but again you're locked into what you can see on screen. If you have a folder full of PDF files you want images of/from, PDF To JPG could be real handy.

My use is with a large collection of music books in .pdf format. Occasionally I want to extract the sheet music/notation for a particular song so I can email it to a friend or band members to work on without having to send the entire book or print out the sheet music. This software works great! It is very easy to use and very fast! I was able to select the exact page range and change the DPI if desired.

I installed it to C:\Program Files simply by using the 'Browse' button. Upon first use it creates an output folder and after each conversion that folder pops up with your converted files so you don't have to search for them.

I don't see any reason why this software got negative ratings especially in the ridiculous proportion shown. This happens so often that I think the ratings are useless and very often an insult to developers and legitimate users. GAOTD needs to review this process. The easiest remedy would be to ELIMINATE the user ratings percentages at the top and let people decide based on the user reviews.

PDF To JPG Converter works, but IMHO you *may* better off using the Alt + Print Screen keys with whatever PDF opened in the Adobe Reader, & then pasting the image into Windows' Paint or some other image editor. The app is portable except for the included file: "MSCOMCTL.OCX", which unfortunately is registered with Windows in the app's folder, by default C:\PDF2JPG. It's an older version & it's in the wrong place -- removing PDF To JPG will break any apps that depend on that file, & very many do use it. That may not be a huge sin, but PDF To JPG doesn't do all that much either, being limited to jpg output, with it's saving grace being it will work on batches &/or folders of PDF files. My advice FWIW is if you install today's GOTD, check for "MSCOMCTL.OCX" in Windows System32 folder [SysWOW64 folder in 64 bit Windows], & if it's there re-register that file -- while it may have to be set to run as admin (depending on Windows version) Regdrop.exe may be the easiest way to do that [avail. here http://goo.gl/OZjtZ or at several other sites -- Google/Bing]... to use it to register a file with Windows, simply drag the file [in this case MSCOMCTL.OCX] on top of the app (I keep a copy of Regdrop.exe on my desktop). As far as PDF To JPG's location goes, as long as Windows has that file registered in the system folder as noted, and most every copy of Windows does, you can move the app's folder pretty much anywhere.

Using PDF To JPG you can drag/drop PDF files on the open program window, or use the menu to open files or folders. Set the output folder, click the Convert button & that's it. Note that unlike some screen capture apps, you'll get 1 jpg per page rather than 1 image file with the entire PDF in it. You can change output image formats [.bmp, .gif, .png, & .tif are also supported], change resolution [DPI], & set 1st/last pages to convert.

Thanks to Truman Roper for his comments. I did not know Irfanview could open pdfs. I had to install the plug-ins(which I did not know there was such a thing) and ghostscript to make it work, though.


I have several pdfs(mostly newspaper and magazine) that have too many ad pages. I am archiving them for perusal later. It is a pain to have to sift through all of the ads, again and again.

OK I worked it out, I picked to save to C drive 'program files' and no need to uninstall and re download as long as you re-do the folder location that you want to save it to. Even if its the same one as you already have it set to, just redo it and it by-passes the password protect Voila !!!
Also just tried it out on a catalogue 16 pages, worked beautifully and was able to save to my choice of folder.
Thanks GOTD
Recently had a bit of a melt down and lost a lot of previous GOTD pdf converter software so now I am collecting again and this is fab

#16, for the first instance, a plain screen grab will provide an image of sufficient resolution to view on the small screens of the type of devices you're talking about.

And from your second point, it is fairly clear that you have never done commercial layout and print. Graphic artists don't do offset printing. Offset printing requires a physical plant that no graphic artist would have. It is used by commercial printers for large-run jobs. Graphic artists send jobs to commercial printers for printing; they don't do it themselves, and they do use PDF as the format for submission.

PDF is frequently used by Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Fireworks users as a document exchange format, and it is the document submission format of choice for many commercial printers. I seldom submit jobs created purely in Photoshop or Fireworks, but when I submit jobs from Illustrator or InDesign, they are always output as PDFs with the "High Quality Print" publishing option set.

This software may be of value to some, but I'm afraid that I must join the ranks of the "what's the point?" comments. I truly cannot imagine a circumstance when I would want to convert from the compact, flexible, powerful, and cross-platform-compatible PDF format to any image format. Hey, if it works for you, and you like it, and you can actually find a reason to use it, fine. As for me, "what's the point?" ;-)

To those who asked why you would want to convert PDF to JPG:

1. So the "picture" will appear within HTML on a web site. If you kept the document as PDF you would have to click on a link instead and require Adobe Reader Web Helper app. within the browser to see it.

2. To insert the picture directly in HTML mail so it appears inline instead of an attachment.

3. As others have said, to view on a device that doesn't support PDF viewing; TV's and Dish Receivers with USB ports for example.

It is only 62% faster than Other PDF Converters.

Oh joy oh thank ye lord, praises be to Allah...Aschraff is back, endlessly promoting his website and pushing your traffic there with the so-called "reviews" here. Good that a couple of you are starting to see this for what it actually is - lots of words that really say nothing, are totally inaccurate, are probably not researched at all, and then promote something on his own site.

Dr. Z

Another point. I notice that the .dll libraries used as the engine behind PDFtoJPG happen to be identical to the ones used by PDFZilla (from a previous GAOTD) I looked and noticed the same price for PDFZilla as PDF2JPG, so while it is worthwhile free, I am not sure I would purchase this product. There are too many less expensive options.

Just checked today's download and the comments. Seems like some people complain about the programs without bothering to read any thing or try to change default settings. Ashraf I am surprised, really surprised at your comments! I'll keep this program for now and give it a good work out.

Why? My little Archos 605 can read pdf files and photo files. But it is much faster with jpegs. If I turn a document into a series of photos, paging and reading it is much faster.

Unfortunately, Irfanview requires ghostscript to view PDF files and hence pull images.
PDF X-change Viewer does a credible job, If you are minimalist, the freeware xpdf program pdftoppm.exe (console program) is very quick and efficient, thought you have to convert (Irfan, again) from ppm or pgm to the format you want to end up with. I am happy with the results, as most of the time, I want to simply pull graphs or charts form an e-Book or PDF article.

That said, my tests of today's Giveaway went very well. The images are clear. It went amazingly fast. The gui was straightforward. I would have liked a drop-down of the resolution, with option to type in my own, because in most all cases a drop-down would be easier and ensure set resolutions in final product. I'm not going to delete it.

That said, because I can do at the command line very similar things, or use the freeware X-Change Viewer as well, and because this is a rarely used utility, I am not sure $50 is really going to provide the market the company wants.

Excellent program. Does exactly what it says and produces crystal clear jpg at 300dpi. @#8: Yeah sure I could print screen, import in graphic utility and save, but if I have 100 pages to convert I need a software like that.

>>15. When I tried to extract the files, a dialogue box came up to say that they were password-protected. Huh?

Comment by Dave — November 23rd, 2010 at 9:14 am >>

Same thing happened to me. I deleted original zipped file, downloaded again, and it worked fine. I hope it works for you also.

Freeware alternative:

PDF Xchange Viewer by Tracker Software

Exporting from a PDF to various graphics formats is only a small part of what it does. It is a full-fledged PDF manager that can replace Adobe Acrobat.

Does anybody remember Irfanview, freeware. It can take a PDF and output it as a PNG, or JPG or GIF or whatever you want. One program does it all.

And lay off Ashraf. It's good to have him back.

Adding to what Barry pointed out, i do not completely understand the utility of this. Wouldnt a printscreen copied into windows paint fulfil the same purpose ? (which i see as the same things since instead of opening the PDF To JPG Converter application i would be opening the windows paint application)

Thank you. I can now get rid of clunky GIMP. This does just what I need. It converts PDF to 300dpi BMP quickly and accurately.

I understand that this may be of limited use to some, but this is something that I can use for a transcription program that accepts image files, but not PDF. I have been using an online program, but after downloading and converting a PDF, I will definitely keep and use this program.

Hi Barry, I can see 2 main uses for this software:
- To send images to someone don't have PDF Reader possibilities (some mobile phones, for example);
- For off-set printing, graphic artists sometimes get errors importing PDF files into their editing software, so it can be used as a turn arround.
Cheers!

When I tried to extract the files, a dialogue box came up to say that they were password-protected. Huh?

I am usually silent on software that does not appeal to me. As so many have noted, the "negative" votes so early are probably more a reflection of, "Would you use this software/do you need it?" much more so that on how well it does what it says it does.

This time, however, I do feel like leaving a comment is important because I cannot for the life of me figure out why I would need to take a PDF and make a JPG from it. A PDF file is small, easily read by many who have downloaded a PDF reader, etc. A PDF file is not easily navigated, can be quite large, and is not editable.

Thinking that maybe I'm not thinking this through, I went to the website. There was nothing there that would help me understand why I would need such a thing. Plus, the offer for "free" Open Office (which is free anyway), made me feel more like I was really being sold something I do not need.

So, even though it is free, it is not just a question of not wanting it, I just don't understand what need would be fulfilled.


I love GOTD and visit daily and download from time to time, and while I can understand why some would view my comment as the usual drivel, it is intended to be constructive. Vendors selling products should, at least in part, be able to tell you not just what their product does, by why you need it (even if you don't!).

I'm sure this is a naïve question, but it's a serious one: why would you want to convert a pdf to jpg? Isn't pdf already an image file? What's the point? Does it reduce file size or something? And why a single-function expensive software to perform this task? What am I missing here?

Tried this stuff on a PDF article from web... I need sometimes to extract images from articles to make presentations for my students. Yes, any PDF reader can copy an image from any PDF document, but exactly as it was rendered for your screen. This is no more than a simple screenshot. The final picture is usually of low resolution and quality. This program makes a great job! It converts PDF into images of any resolution you like! There is no preset values for output resolution, it seems that you can choose any value! I was realistic and tried 300 instead of 120 DPI by default. The result was excellent! It was a bundle of JPEG files 2479*3508 pixels with exceptionally clear images and text. Arshaf declared that there is a “poor usage of DPI property”, I don't agree! I made no changes in default destination of converted files. The program have made there a folder named as converted PDF was, and put there all the files. So incidental overwriting of existing files is impossible. It seems that Ashraf reported this bug played a bit with output folder.

Yes, the program tends to use root directory C:\ for all of its stuff, Ashraf is right! Any way, you have all the possibilities to change the default locations.

Yes, there is no way to choose a degree of compression of output images. Ashraf is right again! My estimation: a compression of JPEG output is about 50%. Any way, if you want to compress them more, you can use any free program as IrfanView.

What I don't like most of all, is an absence of supplied help file. After pressing “Help” button, you have an opened browser window with official site.

Any way, I like this program!

Yes Ashraf - I already read your review!

Thanks!

* Overwrites image files in the same output folder without prompt? Well if you bothered to read the help file you would have found that very well explained. And what kind of prompt were you expecting? The Star Spangled Banner played or some Rap?

* As for the location of the installation if you followed the set-up procedure the program allows the user to install the program anywhere they’d like. The default installation location is not, and I repeat, not mandatory. Most of the games for example use the same procedure without twitching anybody because of it.

*And lacks ability to directly control image resolution? For $49.95 what this program offers is a bargain!

The only thing bad is your nitpicking, and baiting people to leave GOTD, to be redirected to your personal homepage. Isn’t the GiveAwayOfTheDay Forum good enough? Or are we taking advantage of GOTD as a cheap way to get hits to a bogus site? By the way, isn’t that advertising? How much does GOTD charge or is it a free service that any visitor can use to get people to visit their personal web sites? What a great tactic you use!

This is good enough for my purpose. It is certainly very fast, I converted a 32 page document in no time.

Do it for free.

Print screen, open graphic program, paste, save as...

WXPSP3
Installed, registered, started, converted several files OK.
It is really faster and easier for me than what I used before.
I often convert to put pdf pages to ppt presentations because MS Powerpoint 2003 does not provide normal way to insert.
Using heavy featured program for that is a pain.

The Bad by Ashraf:
* Overwrites existing image files of the same name and same format in the output folder without prompt.
- I disagree. Converted 1 page of multi-page pdf file. Program creates separate folder with the name of pdf file. Then each image has a number of converted page. How can I overwrite?

* Attempts to install directly into C: partition by default as opposed to C:Program Files.
- Ashraf, it is not true. Installer proposes that path C:\pdf2jpg and you can accept or change.

* Lacks ability to directly control output image resolutions and poor usage of DPI property.
- DPI is good way (especially if you select TIF output) to manage output resolution. For example typical print has 300DPI, best practicable print has 600DPI. The resolution of typical netbook screen is 120-200 DPI. So you decide the purpose and get optimal size.

Sorry, Ashraf, this time your review looks like promotion of eXPert PDF 5 Pro which is actially not freeware.

The real improvement of this program would be the ability to select several different pages of document, not a range. Like we do for printing.

I hope that PDF to PowerPoint is going to come up again as a giveaway. It is a GREAT program! Thanks, as always, for all of the hard work and valuable programs GOTD provides.

:D
Ashraf is BACK!!!!

Thanks dude for coming back, we really missed your reviews!

#1 Thanks very much Ashraf! I found, that the bad point "Overwrites existing image files of the same name and same format in the output folder without prompt" may turn to be usefull, if you are using the output folder only as a working folder. In case you have made any mismanagement with a converting session you can repeat without beeing bothered by ever repeating questions whether you want to overwrite existing files. But "Lacks ability to directly control output image resolution..." could be easily improved by the developer.

I'm happy with this.Is fast,work good enough for me.Thank.

Thanks for GOTD. Great application, works well to convert my PDF files to Images.
Uh, what a pity! I got another PDF Converter named Simpo PDF converter ultimate, it is not just for extracting pdf images and save them as JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF formats, but is a 6-IN-1 PDF converter anyway.

The Good
* Can convert PDFs to JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIF formats.
* Users are allowed to convert whole PDFs or a select range of pages.
* Supports batch processing.
* Supports drag + drop.

The Bad
* Overwrites existing image files of the same name and same format in the output folder without prompt.
* Attempts to install directly into C: partition by default as opposed to C:Program Files.
* Lacks ability to directly control output image resolutions and poor usage of DPI property.

Free Alternative
eXPert PDF Pro 5

For final verdict, recommendations, and full review please click here.