When PDF to PNG beats JPG
Both formats show a page as an image. The difference is how they store it.
| Page content | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Text, tables, forms | PNG | Letters keep sharp edges |
| Charts, diagrams, floor plans | PNG | Thin lines and flat colors stay clean |
| Slides with logos and icons | PNG | No color blotches around shapes |
| Full page photos, magazine spreads | JPG | Much smaller files with little visible difference |
If your PDF is mostly photos, PDF to JPG will give you lighter files.
Practical uses
- Documentation and wikis: paste a page from a manual into a knowledge base or help article.
- Teaching material: put a worksheet or textbook diagram into a slide deck or a learning platform.
- Design feedback: mark up a page from a PDF proof in any image editor.
- Architecture and real estate: share one floor plan from a long PDF as an image.
A single page of fine print at 300 DPI can be a fairly large PNG. That is the price of being lossless. If you need a smaller file, try 150 DPI first, or shrink the result with Compress PNG.
Limits to keep in mind
Password protected PDFs are not supported, so remove the password in your PDF reader first. All pages are converted, so for a long document you may want to cut out only the pages you need with Split PDF beforehand.
The images show the pages exactly as a PDF reader would draw them, including fonts, colors and vector graphics. If the PDF is a low quality scan, though, raising the DPI makes a bigger file but cannot recover detail that the scan never captured. For a scan, 150 DPI is usually enough.