# pdf2image

> A wrapper around the pdftoppm and pdftocairo command line tools to convert PDF to a PIL Image list.

- **URL**: https://www.freshcrate.ai/projects/pdf2image
- **Author**: Edouard Belval
- **Category**: Developer Tools
- **Latest version**: `1.17.0` (2026-04-21)
- **License**: MIT
- **Source**: https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image
- **Language**: Python
- **GitHub**: 1,959 stars, 212 forks
- **Registry**: pypi (`pdf2image`)
- **Tags**: `convert`, `image`, `jpeg`, `jpg`, `pdf`, `png`, `pypi`

## Description

# pdf2image
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A python (3.7+) module that wraps pdftoppm and pdftocairo to convert PDF to a PIL Image object

## How to install

`pip install pdf2image`

### Windows

Windows users will have to build or download poppler for Windows. I recommend [@oschwartz10612 version](https://github.com/oschwartz10612/poppler-windows/releases/) which is the most up-to-date. You will then have to add the `bin/` folder to [PATH](https://www.architectryan.com/2018/03/17/add-to-the-path-on-windows-10/) or use `poppler_path = r"C:\path\to\poppler-xx\bin" as an argument` in `convert_from_path`.

### Mac

Mac users will have to install [poppler](https://poppler.freedesktop.org/).

Installing using [Brew](https://brew.sh/):

```
brew install poppler
```

### Linux

Most distros ship with `pdftoppm` and `pdftocairo`. If they are not installed, refer to your package manager to install `poppler-utils`

### Platform-independant (Using `conda`)

1. Install poppler: `conda install -c conda-forge poppler`
2. Install pdf2image: `pip install pdf2image`

## How does it work?


```py
from pdf2image import convert_from_path, convert_from_bytes
from pdf2image.exceptions import (
    PDFInfoNotInstalledError,
    PDFPageCountError,
    PDFSyntaxError
)
```

Then simply do:

```py
images = convert_from_path('/home/belval/example.pdf')
```

OR

```py
images = convert_from_bytes(open('/home/belval/example.pdf', 'rb').read())
```

OR better yet

```py
import tempfile

with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as path:
    images_from_path = convert_from_path('/home/belval/example.pdf', output_folder=path)
    # Do something here
```

`images` will be a list of PIL Image representing each page of the PDF document.

Here are the definitions:

`convert_from_path(pdf_path, dpi=200, output_folder=None, first_page=None, last_page=None, fmt='ppm', jpegopt=None, thread_count=1, userpw=None, use_cropbox=False, strict=False, transparent=False, single_file=False, output_file=str(uuid.uuid4()), poppler_path=None, grayscale=False, size=None, paths_only=False, use_pdftocairo=False, timeout=600, hide_attributes=False)`

`convert_from_bytes(pdf_file, dpi=200, output_folder=None, first_page=None, last_page=None, fmt='ppm', jpegopt=None, thread_count=1, userpw=None, use_cropbox=False, strict=False, transparent=False, single_file=False, output_file=str(uuid.uuid4()), poppler_path=None, grayscale=False, size=None, paths_only=False, use_pdftocairo=False, timeout=600, hide_attributes=False)`

## What's new?

- Allow users to hide attributes when using pdftoppm with `hide_attributes` (Thank you @StaticRocket)
- Fix console opening on Windows (Thank you @OhMyAgnes!)
- Add `timeout` parameter which raises `PDFPopplerTimeoutError` after the given number of seconds.
- Add `use_pdftocairo` parameter which forces `pdf2image` to use `pdftocairo`. Should improve performance.
- Fixed a bug where using `pdf2image` with multiple threads (but not multiple processes) would cause and exception
- `jpegopt` parameter allows for tuning of the output JPEG when using `fmt="jpeg"` (`-jpegopt` in pdftoppm CLI) (Thank you @abieler)
- `pdfinfo_from_path` and `pdfinfo_from_bytes` which expose the output of the pdfinfo CLI
- `paths_only` parameter will return image paths instead of Image objects, to prevent OOM when converting a big PDF
- `size` parameter allows you to define the shape of the resulting images (`-scale-to` in pdftoppm CLI)
    - `size=400` will fit the image to a 400x400 box, preserving aspect ratio
    - `size=(400, None)` will make the image 400 pixels wide, preserving aspect ratio
    - `size=(500, 500)` will resize the image to 500x500 pixels, not preserving aspect ratio
- `grayscale` parameter allows you to convert images to grayscale (`-gray` in pdftoppm CLI)
- `single_file` parameter allows you to convert the first PDF page only, without adding digits at the end of the `output_file`
- Allow the user to specify poppler's installation path with `poppler_path`

## Performance tips

- Using an output folder is significantly faster if you are using an SSD. Otherwise i/o usually becomes the bottleneck.
- Using multiple threads can give you some gains but avoid more than 4 as this will cause i/o bottleneck (even on my NVMe SSD!).
- If i/o is your bottleneck, using the JPEG format can lead to significant gains.
- PNG format is pretty slow, this is because of the compression.
- If you want to know the best settings (mos

## Recent releases

| Version | Date | Urgency | Changes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `1.17.0` | 2026-04-21 | Low | Imported from PyPI (1.17.0) |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |
| `v1.17.0` | 2024-01-07 | Low | ## What's Changed * Update __init__.py to mark exports as public by @John-Schreiber in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/276 * Add first and last page (-f and -l) to pdfinfo by @magnurud in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/274 * Import memory_profiler only when it is enabled by @musicinmybrain in https://github.com/Belval/pdf2image/pull/269 * Fixed the issue: when the `single_file` is `True` and the `thread_count` is greater than 1, the `thread_output_file = next(output_file)` |

## Citation

- HTML: https://www.freshcrate.ai/projects/pdf2image
- Markdown: https://www.freshcrate.ai/projects/pdf2image.md
- Dependencies JSON: https://www.freshcrate.ai/api/projects/pdf2image/deps

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