Extract Images or PDF to JPG?

2026-10-29

Two jobs sound alike and give very different files. One takes the pictures out of a PDF. The other photographs each page. Picking the wrong one is the most common reason for a disappointing result.

Extracting images: the pictures themselves

Extract Images looks inside the PDF for the image files it carries and saves each one separately. You get the photo without the text around it, at the pixel size stored in the PDF. Ten pages that reuse the same logo give one logo, not ten. A page with no pictures gives nothing, because there is nothing to take out.

Converting pages: a picture of every page

A converter such as PDF to JPG or PDF to PNG draws each page — text, lines, pictures, everything — and saves the page as one image. You choose the resolution, and every page becomes a file whether it has pictures or not. This is what you want for a thumbnail of a page, a slide preview or a page to post as an image.

How to choose

1. You want a photo, logo or illustration on its own: extract images.
2. You want what a page looks like, with its text: convert the page.
3. You want the picture at the size it was put into the PDF, without a new round of JPEG compression: extract images.
4. Your PDF is a scan: either works. Each scanned page is usually stored as one image, so extracting gives you the scan itself at the scanner’s resolution, while converting draws the page again at a resolution you pick.

A quick test

Open the PDF in Extract Images. If the grid shows the pictures you were after, you are done. If it says No images found in this PDF, the graphics are drawn shapes or text, and converting the pages is the way to keep them.