pdfpix

Best free PDF to JPG converter

Exporting a PDF page as a picture is a rendering job, and one setting decides the result: resolution. Most free tools give you named presets and no number. This page ranks by whether you can state the resolution you need, and covers the JPG against PNG choice that matters just as much.

Rank by resolution control

Low, medium and high are not resolutions. If you need images for print you need 300 dots per inch; for a slide or a web page 150 is usually right; for a thumbnail 96 is plenty. A preset hides which of those you got and makes the result impossible to repeat.

The pdfpix exporter takes those three values exactly, writes JPG at quality zero point eight two or PNG without loss, names each file page-001 onward, and zips the set when there is more than one page. It runs in the tab and uploads nothing.

What the free suites give you

iLovePDF converts pages to JPG on its servers; its free tier is described as essential tools with limited document processing and publishes no number, checked 20 August 2026. PDF Candy applies page and hourly restrictions on its free tier with no batch processing.

PDF24 states it is free without artificial limits, funded by advertising, and also processes on its servers. All three are fine for a page or two, as is CleverPDF, which describes forty four permanently free online tools. None of them lets you name the resolution as a number.

JPG or PNG

Choose JPG when the page is mostly photographs or scans: the file is far smaller and the compression artefacts hide in the noise. Choose PNG when the page is text, diagrams, tables or line art, because JPG smears sharp edges and thin rules.

The mistake that costs most is exporting a text page to JPG at a low resolution. The letters acquire grey halos and cannot be recovered, and no later step fixes it. Re-export from the PDF instead, which costs nothing.

The page limit that surprises people

Rendering happens in memory and a page is rendered as one bitmap. The pdfpix exporter caps a page at forty million pixels, which is a large A4 page at 300 dots per inch with room to spare, and it refuses the render rather than producing a corrupt image.

If you hit that, drop to 150 dots per inch, or crop the page first with rotate and crop. Very large format pages, posters and plans are the usual cause, not ordinary documents.

What you lose, and when it matters

An image of a page has no selectable text. Nobody can search it, copy from it or read it with a screen reader. That is correct for a thumbnail or a slide and wrong for anything someone has to work with.

If the reason for exporting was file size, do not export at all. Set a size target instead and keep the text: on the public test corpus the median reduction was 59.2 percent with text retention of 1.0000 at the median and the minimum. The export guide has the full sequence.

Questions people ask

What resolution should I export PDF pages at?
300 dots per inch for print, 150 for slides and web pages, 96 for thumbnails. The pdfpix exporter takes those three values exactly, so the result is repeatable rather than a guess behind a preset name.
Should I export pages as JPG or PNG?
JPG for photographs and scans, where the file is far smaller and artefacts hide in the noise. PNG for text, diagrams, tables and line art, because JPG smears sharp edges and thin rules in a way you cannot undo.
How do I get every page of a PDF as a separate image?
The exporter writes one file per page, named page-001 onward, and zips them when there is more than one. Nothing is uploaded; the rendering happens in your browser.
Does exporting to JPG keep the text searchable?
No. An image of a page has no text at all: no search, no copying, no screen reader. If you only wanted a smaller file, compress to a size target instead and keep the text intact.

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