Are my PDF files uploaded anywhere?

No. This conversion runs entirely inside your browser, so the file never leaves your device. You can confirm it yourself: open the network tab of your browser's developer tools and watch that nothing is sent while the file converts.

Should I convert a PDF to PNG or to JPG?

PNG, if the page is mostly text. JPG compression is built for photographs and it smears the boundary between black letters and white paper, which shows as a grey haze around every word. PNG stores each pixel exactly, so the text stays as crisp as it was drawn. For a scanned photograph inside a PDF, JPG is the better target.

The first. A PNG holds one picture and a PDF holds a sequence, so something has to give. Extracting every page separately is a PDF tool rather than a conversion, and it is not built yet.

Will the PNG file be large?

Larger than a JPG, sometimes considerably. That is PNG being lossless. For a page of text it is usually still modest, because flat white paper compresses extremely well — it is photographs that make PNG files enormous.

Does the background stay white or become transparent?

White. A PDF page has a page under it, and that page is rendered. Nothing here produces a transparent cut-out.

PDFtoPNG

Convert PDF to PNG

Up to 3 files at once, 100 with Pro. Mixed formats are fine.

A PDF page is mostly text, and converting PDF to PNG is what keeps that text sharp — JPG blurs the edge between a letter and the paper. Because a PDF stores drawing instructions rather than pixels, you can raise the width as far as you like and the result stays perfectly crisp. Drop the file above; it renders in your browser.

Why PNG beats JPG for a page of text

If you need a picture of a PDF page, this is usually the conversion you want rather than the JPG one, and the reason is worth thirty seconds. A document page is made of hard black shapes on flat white — letters, rules, table borders. JPG compression was designed for photographs, where colour shifts gradually, and it deals with hard edges by blurring them slightly and adding a faint halo. On a photograph you never notice. On a page of ten-point text you notice immediately: the words look slightly furred, as though the page had been photocopied one time too many.

PNG has no such problem. It stores every pixel exactly as drawn, so the letters are as crisp in the image as they were in the document. For a page going into a slide, a report, a bug ticket or anywhere somebody has to read it, that difference is the whole thing.

PNG is often smaller than JPG here, not larger

The size question usually resolves in PNG's favour too, which surprises people who have learned that PNG means large files. That rule comes from photographs, where PNG is genuinely inefficient. A document page is mostly identical white pixels, and identical pixels are exactly what PNG compresses best. A text page as a PNG is often smaller than the same page as a good-quality JPG, and always sharper.

Getting a high-resolution PNG from a PDF

Sharpness is something you control here, and it works unlike any other conversion on this site. A PDF holds no pixels at all — it describes where every glyph and line goes, which is why you can zoom into one forever without it going blocky. Converting to an image means picking a size to draw at.

The default is comfortable for reading on screen; raise the width in the settings if the picture is going into print or somebody needs to zoom in. You are not enlarging anything, so nothing gets softer, and there is no upper limit beyond your own memory.

The exception: scanned documents

A scan is a photograph of paper wrapped in a PDF, and it does have a fixed resolution — the one the scanner used. Drawing it larger stretches the photograph without adding detail, and for a scan of a page, JPG may even be the better target since the content is photographic rather than crisp to begin with.

Two limits worth knowing before you start

You get the first page — a PNG holds one image and there is no honest way around that.

And the words become pixels: the result cannot be searched, selected or copied. If somebody needs the text rather than the look of the page, open the PDF in a reader and copy it straight out, because it is still text right up until this conversion draws it.

How to turn a PDF page into a PNG image

Drop your PDF onto this page, or click to choose one.
The first page is drawn as a sharp, lossless image.
Download the PNG, or raise the width in the settings for more detail.

PDF vs PNG: a described page against a drawn one

PDF compared with PNG
	PDF	PNG
Full name	Portable Document Format	Portable Network Graphics
File extension	.pdf	.png
Media type	application/pdf	image/png
Compression	Either, depending on the setting	Lossless — nothing is discarded

Quality: The result is a close reconstruction rather than an exact copy. Check it before relying on it.
Where it runs: This conversion is not available yet. The page describes what it will do once the engine ships.
What can be lost: The result is an image. Text in it is no longer selectable or searchable.

PDF to PNG: resolution, pages and text

Are my PDF files uploaded anywhere?: No. This conversion runs entirely inside your browser, so the file never leaves your device. You can confirm it yourself: open the network tab of your browser's developer tools and watch that nothing is sent while the file converts.
Should I convert a PDF to PNG or to JPG?: PNG, if the page is mostly text. JPG compression is built for photographs and it smears the boundary between black letters and white paper, which shows as a grey haze around every word. PNG stores each pixel exactly, so the text stays as crisp as it was drawn. For a scanned photograph inside a PDF, JPG is the better target.
Which page do I get?: The first. A PNG holds one picture and a PDF holds a sequence, so something has to give. Extracting every page separately is a PDF tool rather than a conversion, and it is not built yet.
How do I get a higher resolution PNG?: Raise the width in the settings and convert again — and it costs nothing in quality. A PDF stores drawing instructions rather than pixels, so the page is redrawn at whatever size you ask for. You are not enlarging an image.
Will the PNG file be large?: Larger than a JPG, sometimes considerably. That is PNG being lossless. For a page of text it is usually still modest, because flat white paper compresses extremely well — it is photographs that make PNG files enormous.
Does the background stay white or become transparent?: White. A PDF page has a page under it, and that page is rendered. Nothing here produces a transparent cut-out.
Can I still select the text afterwards?: No. The words become pixels, so the result cannot be searched, selected or copied. If somebody needs the text rather than the look of the page, open the PDF in a reader and copy it straight out — it is still text right up until this conversion draws it.