How to Rasterise PDF files

What is rasterising a PDF file?

When you rasterise a PDF file, you convert the pages of the document into image files. The advantage of rasterising the file is that the pages cannot be edited and a PDF viewer is no longer needed to display the pages. The disadvantage is that you lose all the features of the PDF file and Viewer and have all the limitations of a bitmap display.

To rasterise a PDF file, some additional software is needed. We will show you the process using JPedal and Java.

How to Rasterise a PDF file

Step 1 Download a trial copy of JPedal.
Step 2 Make sure your Computer has Java installed.
Step 3 Open up a Command line or console window
Step 4 Type in this command (adding in your own values).

java -jar jpedal.jar --convert "inputFileOrDir" "outputDir" png

If you are a Java Developer, you can also add this functionality into your own code.

How to Rasterise a PDF file in Java

Step 1 Download a trial copy of JPedal and add it to your IDE.
Step 2 Create a File handle, InputStream or URL pointing to the PDF file

ConvertPagesToImages extract=new ConvertPagesToImages(path);

Step 3 Include a password if file password protected

extract.setPassword("password");

Step 4 Open the PDF file

if (extract.openPDFFile()) {

Step 5 Iterate over the pages

int pageCount = extract.getPageCount();
  for (int page = 1; page <= pageCount; page++) {
      BufferedImage img = extract.getPageAsImage(page, hasAlpha);
  }
}