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Rasterizing PDFs

We have three different toolkits which can rasterize PDFs:

• If you're looking for a simple tool to rasterize PDFs for thumbnail previews in your web app, for example, consider our PDF2IMG toolkit
• If you're looking for additional functionality besides just rasterizing PDFs, such as adding watermarks, annotations, extracting text, or building your own PDF viewing functionality, the Adobe PDF Library SDK might be the more appropriate toolkit.
• If you need to rasterize PDFs as part of a high-end print production workflow, the Adobe PDF Print Engine (aka Adobe's native PDF RIP) might be what you're looking for.

Rasterizing using PDF2IMG

PDF2IMG is ideally suited for quick implementation where simple rasterization is required, for example, creating thumbnail JPEG previews for web display in an online application. The toolkit includes an executable "wrapper" application which be used out-of-the-box to build a simple script-based process. Output formats include BMP, EPS, GIF, JPG, PNG and TIFF. PDF2IMG provides controls for:

• page or page range to convert
• region of page to convert (e.g., crop, bleed, bounding)
• zooming and scaling
• compression quality (for JPEG) and resolution up to 2400 dpi
• overprint options
• blackpoint compensation
• output color model, including RGB, RGBA, grayscale and CMYK (for appropriate output formats)
• font smoothing options
• color reversal (i.e., convert black to white)

PDF2IMG is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux.

Learn more about PDF2IMG.

Rasterizing using the Adobe PDF Library SDK

The rendering functionality of PDF2IMG is provided by the Adobe PDF Library SDK, which also powers the display of PDFs in Acrobat and Reader. The Adobe PDF Library SDK can be a good choice if:

• you need to do other PDF manipulations (such as manipulate text or insert bookmarks)
• you're looking for greater control over the specific region to raster
• you're looking to more tightly control the color conversion of the operation
• you're implementing a high-performance multi-threaded solution
• you're building on a platform not supported by PDF2IMG

Learn more about the Adobe PDF Library SDK.

Rasterizing using the Adobe PDF Print Engine toolkit

The Adobe PDF Print Engine is Adobe's new native PDF RIP. It is ideal for high-volume, high-speed print workflow environments, and provides:

• High speed, high resolution printing with support for 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 16-bit output
• End-to-end PDF workflow using common Adobe components from designer to customer to printer
• Native PDF RIP for reliable transparency output and color management
• Advanced spot color controls allowing remapping, overprint emulation and device-independent alternative color specification
• Support for PDF/VT, the new standard for variable data printing
• JDF 1.4 support for complete job control including automated imposition

Learn more about the Adobe PDF Print Engine toolkit.