When Adobe introduced the PDF format, I don’t think they expected PDF files to become so popular. So many documents and files are now kept by users as PDF: older emails, invoices, resumes, bills, even images. Among with the spreading of PDF format, a wide variety of programs and tools emerged on the Internet: viewers and readers, starting with Acrobat Reader; PDF converters and creators, extractors, programs designed to change the order of pages in files; tools that split and merge; a huge number of libraries that developers use to create their own utilities. Most of them are commercial, but freeware programs are also available.

A smaller niche is represented by tools that convert an input PDF file to image. BMP, JPEG, PNG and GIFF are some of those image formats. The idea is simple: each page from a file is transformed into a single image. DPI settings and the quality of the image are important features that should be available to users. If the tool is free, it’s even better. Here is a selection of free PDF to image converters that will help you convert any PDF to image.

PDFCreator is one of the most complex solutions available; it was originally developed to convert any document to PDF using a virtual printer, but will also transform a given PDF to image. Installation is simple, just download the setup file. Don’t panic when you see a new printer, this is how it works. Any file that can be printed can also be converted to PDF using this new virtual printer. You can also load a PDF document if you open the program directly. Various options are available starting from that point. It uses Ghostscript, and it’s published under the GNU license. This means the source is available for you to tweak, but only under the same GNU license terms. Originally created on the SourceForge platform, it was moved later on the author’s own website, PDFForge.org. It works on Windows, and can convert to BMP, JPEG, PNG and TIFF.

ConvertPDFtoImage is a free web based solution that will convert a PDF to image. The process is quite simple: you select the input PDF file and click on the “Convert and Download button”. You have to wait a couple of minutes, depending on server load. After the conversion process is done, click on the download button and you will be prompted to save an archive with the output images. You cannot choose the image type, you cannot convert bigger files, it’s a little bit slow, but it’s web based, platform independent and free.

123PDFtoImage is a free PDF to image converter software that appeared quite recent on the web. Using this tool you can convert more PDF documents at once, select between all pages or just a selection, choose the DPI settings and quality of output images. It supports BMP, JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS and other formats. It’s free for non-commercial environments and there is a Professional edition for those who need more features. Works on all Windows versions and the Graphical User Interface is smooth and user friendly. Installation is fast, just visit freepdftoimage.com and download the compact setup file.

Author Bio: Ted Peterson’s pick as a PDF to image converter is 123 PDF to Image. Free and easy to use.

Category: Computers and Technology
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