How to Convert PDF Pages into Images

Scope

The objective of this lesson is to learn how to convert the pages of a PDF file into their own image files using a lightweight command-line-based utility developed in the Python programming language.

Requirements

The following component is brought into play:

PyMuPDF

It is a Python binding for the MuPDF library. MuPDF comprises a software library, command-line tools, and viewers for various platforms. MuPDF is recognized for its ultimate performance and high rendering quality. It allows accessing files in PDF, XPS, OpenXPS, CBZ, EPUB, and FB2 (e-books) formats.

The standard Python import statement for this library is import fitz.

Library	Version
PyMuPDF	1.18.9
Filetype	1.0.7

Get started with coding

The steps needed to develop this converter are shown in the code snippet below:

Define a function called convert_pdf2img, which performs the following steps:

• Open a pre-chosen PDF file (Line 8).
• Iterate throughout its inner pages (Line 12).
• For the pages selected per the input Pages parameter, a screenshot will be taken. The screenshot will depend on the zoom factor, which is representing an operand, to scale up the resolution of the generated image. It also depends on the rotate parameter, which indicates if rotation is needed for the output image (Line 34).
• Each screenshot taken will be saved to an image file having its type specified as a parameter. In this case, it will be output_type. Moreover, the generated image file will follow a predefined naming convention ending with _Page, concatenated to the page number, and this image file will be stored within the same folder of the input file (Line 36).
• At the end, a summary will be displayed on the console, showing the arguments of this function and the generated image files.