How to Convert PDF to JPG and JPG to PDF

By Photoyam team Updated October 21, 2026 9 min read

A PDF keeps a multi-page document together and prints at the right size; an image drops straight into a chat, a slide or a web page. This guide shows how to turn every page of a PDF into a JPG or PNG, and a stack of photos or scans back into one PDF, in your browser, with the settings that matter and what each direction throws away.

What changes when a page becomes an image

Most PDFs made on a computer are not pictures. Text is stored as characters in a font, charts and lines as vector shapes, and only photos as pixels. That is why you can zoom in without the letters going soft, copy a sentence or click a link.

Converting a page to JPG or PNG rasterizes it: the page is drawn once, at a fixed size, onto a grid of pixels. After that, the text is just dark pixels shaped like letters. You lose:

• Selectable and searchable text. Nobody can copy a paragraph or search the image for a word.
• Links and form fields. A clickable link becomes underlined text that goes nowhere; a fillable field becomes a drawn box.
• Infinite zoom. The image has the detail it was rendered at, and no more. A ten-page PDF also becomes ten separate files.

A scanned PDF is different: each page already is a photo of paper, so converting it loses almost nothing. The opposite direction has its own catch: a PDF built from JPGs is still a set of pictures. Photoyam does not run text recognition (OCR), so the words in it cannot be searched or copied.

PDF to JPG, step by step

The PDF to JPG page does the whole job on the page itself. The file is opened with a PDF renderer that runs in your browser tab, so a bank statement or a signed form never leaves your device.

1. Open the PDF to JPG page. Go to /pdf-to-jpg and choose your PDF, or drop it on the page.
2. Wait for the pages to be split. The PDF turns into one row per page, labelled Page 1 of 4, Page 2 of 4 and so on, and every page is converted with the current settings. Long documents show a progress bar you can cancel.
3. Pick the format and quality. Under Convert to, leave Format on JPG for photo-heavy pages, or switch it to PNG for text, tables and line drawings (see below). For JPG, Quality starts at 90; anywhere from 85 to 90 is a sensible range. The list also offers WebP, BMP, TIFF, GIF, PDF, ICO and AVIF where your browser supports it.
4. Override single pages if needed. Each row has its own Save as menu. Leave it on Batch setting, or pick PNG for just the page with the spreadsheet while the photo pages stay JPG.
5. Check a page. Click a row to show it in the before/after preview and drag the slider to compare.
6. Download. Use a row’s Download button for one page, or Download all (ZIP) for the set. Files are named after the PDF with the page number added, such as garden-club-newsletter-p2.jpg. To leave a page out of the ZIP, remove its row with the × button first.

Resolution and DPI, in real numbers

PDF pages are measured in points, 72 to the inch, so an A4 page is 595 × 842 points and US Letter is 612 × 792. When a page is turned into pixels, the number of pixels per inch you render at decides how sharp the image is. This is what people mean by “DPI” when converting PDFs:

Photoyam does not ask for a DPI. It renders every page so that its longest side is 2,000 pixels, which keeps memory in check on long documents. That works out to 1414 × 2000 for an A4 page (about 171 ppi) and 1545 × 2000 for Letter (about 182 ppi): comfortably above the “screen” row of the table, below print quality. A landscape page simply comes out the other way round, 2000 × 1414. Very small pages, such as a ticket or a label, are capped at three times their size in points rather than blown up to 2,000 pixels.

That is plenty for reading the page on a laptop or phone, but not for reprinting it at full size; for that, print the PDF itself.

JPG or PNG for PDF pages?

JPG saves space by smoothing away fine detail, which suits photos but leaves faint grey speckles around sharp edges like black letters on white paper. PNG is lossless.

• Mostly text, tables or charts: PNG. Letters stay clean, and mostly white pages compress well, so the file stays reasonable.
• Photos, scans or full-colour layouts: JPG at 85 to 90. A PNG of a photo-heavy page can be several times larger with no visible gain.
• Mixed documents: set the batch to JPG and switch the text-only pages to PNG with their row’s Save as menu.

Posting a page online? The image compressor can shrink it further.

JPG to PDF, step by step

JPG to PDF combines photos, screenshots or phone scans into a single PDF, one image per page. It accepts JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP and AVIF, up to 100 images (200 MB each). iPhone HEIC photos need HEIC to JPG first.

1. Add your images. Open /jpg-to-pdf and choose or drop the files. Each becomes a numbered row.
2. Put them in order. Drag a row by its handle, or use the up and down arrows. The row number is the page number. Remove a stray image with the × button.
3. Choose a page size. Same as image (the default) makes each page exactly the size of its image. A4 or US Letter scales every image to fit the paper and centres it.
4. Set orientation and margin. With A4 or Letter, Orientation on Automatic turns the page sideways for landscape photos; Portrait or Landscape forces one for all pages. Margin adds white space on every side: Small is about 7 mm and Large about 14 mm. The little page icons in each row update to show the layout.
5. Create and download. Click Create PDF, then Download PDF. A single image is saved under its own name; several are saved as images.pdf.

JPGs go into the PDF untouched, with no second round of compression, and PNGs are stored losslessly. Phone photos with a rotation tag are re-saved upright first. WebP, GIF, BMP and AVIF images become PNG on the way in, which can make the PDF bigger than the originals; run it through Compress PDF if size matters, or join it to another document with Merge PDF.

Making a PDF that prints at the right size

With Same as image, one pixel becomes one point, so a 1440 × 1080 screenshot makes a 20 × 15 inch page. Viewers zoom to fit, so on screen that is harmless, but if the PDF will be printed or a form expects A4 or Letter, choose that paper size.

For a single image that must print at an exact size, such as a poster or flyer laid out at 2480 × 3508 pixels (A4 at 300 ppi), the editor can set the page size precisely:

1. Open the image. In the editor, use File › Open… (Ctrl+O, or Cmd+O on a Mac).
2. Set its resolution. Open Image › Image Size… (Ctrl+Alt+I, or Cmd+Option+I), leave Width and Height alone and type 300 into Resolution (pixels/inch). Print size updates as you type. The pixels do not change, so nothing is resampled. Click OK.
3. Export. Choose File › Export As › PDF. The page is sized from that resolution: our 2480 × 3508 poster came out as an exact A4 page, 595 × 842 points.

The editor’s File › Open… does not accept PDFs. To edit a page, say to blur an account number, convert the PDF on the PDF to JPG page, click that page’s row and choose Edit further in the editor.

Troubleshooting

“This PDF is password-protected”

The file needs a password just to open it, and pages that cannot be opened cannot be drawn. Open it with the password in a PDF reader you trust, save or print it to a new PDF without the password, and convert that copy. PDFs that only restrict printing or copying usually open without any trouble.

“This PDF could not be opened. It may be damaged”

Often the download was cut short; download it again. Files over 200 MB are refused up front, because a browser tab can run out of memory on them.

Small text looks fuzzy in the JPGs

Switch the page to PNG. If it is still hard to read, the page is too dense for 2,000 pixels: crop out the part you need in the editor, or send the PDF itself.

A photo is sideways in the PDF

The rotation tag phones write is already respected, so the picture itself was saved sideways. Fix it on the Rotate page and add it again.

Common mistakes

• Converting a text PDF to JPG to make it smaller. The images are usually larger, and the text stops being searchable. Use Compress PDF instead.
• Saving text pages as low-quality JPG. Quality 60 makes every letter blotchy. Use PNG, or keep JPG at 85 or higher.

FAQ