How to convert a .pdf file into a folder of images?

Question

I have some .pdf files that I would like to convert to my preferred reading format of .cbr or .cbz or, if this isn't directly possible, I need to extract all pages from the .pdf as images and then compress them into my format of choice. I have only been able to save pages one at a time with Document Viewer. Obviously, I'd like to do it a little quicker. I have tried pdfsam, pdf shuffler, and pdfmod all with no luck. I am using Ubuntu 11.10.

Answer 1

OK well, I did some more research and although tohuwawohu's method does work, I found it easier to use a program called pdftoppm to achieve what I wanted done. Since I am pretty much a layperson when it comes to using command line apps, I will do my best to explain how I got this to work for me.

1. Navigate to the folder containing the .pdf you wish to edit and open a terminal there. I did this by using the sample command:

   cd ~/Documents/PDF
   

2. Let's say the file I want to edit is called Sample.pdf What I want to do is use pdftoppm to create image files of each page of the .pdf. Several formats can be chosen (see the man pages link above) but I prefer to use .png. The basic command looks like this:

   pdftoppm -FORMAT FILENAME.pdf PREFIX
   

   or in the example above:

   pdftoppm -png Sample.pdf Sample
   

   This command creates an image file of each page in the same folder as the original .pdf file with names like Sample-01.png, Sample-02.png and so on. I have tried it with the .png and .jpeg extensions successfully. .jpg is apparently not supported.

3. Then I just use Archive Manager by selecting all the newly-created image files, right-clicking, and choosing "Compress" from the context menu. I then choose the archive format I prefer (in this case .cbz or Comic Book Zip) and create the new archive.

4. Now I have a shiny new .cbz file called Sample.cbz which I can then view with my Comix reader!

Hopefully what I have posted above makes enough sense that someone else can learn from it. If I need to change it in any way please let me know.

Answer 2

Try using calibre to directly convert the .pdf to .cbr or .cbz.

Answer 3

I'm not very familiar with *.cbr / *.cbz, but it seems you'll have to combine two steps:

1. Convert PDF to Images
2. Compress them into a ZIP / RAR archive.

Regarding step 1, you could use ImageMagick's convert command. You can feed convert with a PDf comprising multiple pages, and convert will return each page as single graphics file. I've tested it with a text scanned at 400 dpi, and the following command resulted in nice single JPGEs:

$ convert -verbose -colorspace RGB -interlace none -density 400 -quality 100 yourPdfFile.pdf 00%d.jpeg

(credits regarding the -quality option: this forum entry)

As a result, you get 000.jpeg, 001.jpeg and so on. Just zip them into a .cbz file, and you're done.

You could even combine both steps by "concatenating" them:

$ convert -verbose -colorspace RGB -interlace none -density 400 -quality 100 yourPdfFile.pdf 00%d.jpg && zip -vm comic.cbz *.jpg

(make sure that there aren't any other JPEGs in your current working directory, since using the code above, zip will move all JPEGs into the cbz file)

Answer 4

It seems that the easiest way is using Acrobat Pro.

1. Open the PDf in Acrobat Pro.
2. Once the file is opened, go to File → Export → Image → JPEG, it will export each page as a single JPG.
3. Place all the JPGs in a folder
4. Zip the folder.
5. Manually change the extension at the end of the zipped file from .zip to .cbz

If you prefer a CBR file, rar the folder instead of zipping it, then change the extension from .rar to .cbr.

Answer 5

using the "convert" as noted above, I get only 1 image from a pdf file containing 3 pages: ie only 1 pdf page is converted to 1 jpg image. why does this not produce 3 jpg files; ie a jpg for each pdf page? thanks.