Choose PDF export settings by the smallest text someone needs to read. In PDF to JPG, render one representative page, inspect it at 100% zoom, then increase the resolution or choose PNG if JPEG compression makes the text difficult to read.
A larger image is not automatically a better one. The useful questions are whether the source contains enough detail, whether you rendered enough pixels, and whether later compression or resizing discarded them.
Choose pages and a test resolution
Add one PDF and wait for its page thumbnails. Select the pages you need or enter physical page numbers in Pages to render, such as 1-3, 7. Leaving the range empty includes every page. A number beyond the document is refused instead of quietly omitted.
The renderer supports 36–300 dpi, with presets at 72, 144, 216 and 300 dpi. The PDF to Images and PDF to JPG pages use the same renderer; JPG is simply the opening format on the latter.
For a US Letter page measuring 8.5 by 11 inches:
| Resolution | Approximate image dimensions | Pixels per page |
|---|---|---|
| 144 dpi | 1,224 × 1,584 | 1.94 million |
| 216 dpi | 1,836 × 2,376 | 4.36 million |
| 300 dpi | 2,550 × 3,300 | 8.42 million |
Larger paper produces larger images at the same resolution. The input limit is one PDF up to 100 MiB and 100 pages. Rendering is capped at 40 megapixels per page and 120 megapixels across the run; a large page can exceed those budgets even when the file itself is small. Start with one page to check readability and device performance before converting a large selection.
Choose the format as well as the resolution
JPG and WebP use lossy compression controlled by their quality setting. Lower quality can reduce bytes while making thin strokes, small punctuation and table lines less clear. PNG avoids that lossy encoding step and ignores the quality setting, but may produce a larger file.
For text-heavy pages, compare PNG with a high-quality JPG rather than assuming the smallest result is adequate. A page dominated by photographs may suit JPG or WebP. Every page is painted on white before export, so changing the format does not preserve transparent page backgrounds.
The output is a picture. Its text is no longer selectable or searchable, and no OCR runs during rendering. Keep the PDF when the recipient needs its text layer, document structure or interactive features.
Find the cause of soft text
Check these possibilities separately:
- Too few rendered pixels: increase the resolution and compare the same text again.
- Lossy encoding: keep the resolution fixed and try a higher quality or PNG.
- A scaled viewer preview: inspect the downloaded image at 100%, rather than judging a small fitted preview.
- Resizing after export: avoid reducing an image and then enlarging it again in another application.
- A soft source scan: inspect the original PDF. More output pixels cannot reconstruct detail that the scan never captured.
For example, raising the resolution of a low-detail scanned page may create a larger image without making its letters easier to distinguish. A better scan or a text-based source document is the useful fix in that case.
Example: a report with small footnotes
Suppose you need images from a twelve-page report for a presentation. Choose a page containing the smallest footnotes and render it at 144 dpi. If the footnotes are unclear at the intended viewing size, compare 216 or 300 dpi and PNG output.
Twelve US Letter pages at 300 dpi contain about 101 million pixels, within the 120-million-pixel run budget. That calculation does not guarantee your device will process the batch comfortably. Page content, image buffers and other open applications also affect memory use.
Keep the resulting pixel dimensions when adding the image to the presentation. If you need a smaller version, resize a copy once with Image Resizer. Converting an already softened JPG to PNG changes the format, but does not recover discarded detail.
Inspect the files you will actually use
Select Convert and download the single image or the multiple-page outputs. Several pages are available individually and in a ZIP. Compare the number and order of the exported pages with your selection.
Open a downloaded image and check the smallest text, fine rules and any photographs at the size people will see them. Change one setting at a time when comparing alternatives, so you can tell whether resolution, format or quality produced the improvement.