Convert PDF to JPG on Linux

Browser-based or command-line: when each makes sense

Linux is the platform where the command line is often the better answer. poppler-utils ships pdftoppm, which rasterises pages directly; ImageMagick can do the same through magick or convert; Ghostscript can as well. If you are already in a terminal and converting a whole directory, a short loop gets the job done and needs no GUI at all.

The catch is what each route asks of you first. Those utilities are not always installed, adding them needs a package manager and usually root, and immutable distributions such as Fedora Silverblue or an image-based SteamOS install make that a deliberate act rather than a quick command. Two friction points come up constantly: ImageMagick defers PDF handling to Ghostscript, so it fails outright when Ghostscript is missing, and its policy file at /etc/ImageMagick-7/policy.xml is often shipped with PDFs blocked, producing "not allowed by the security policy" until it is edited as root.

• Use the command line for many documents at once, for scripted or repeatable jobs, over SSH, or when the output has to be part of a pipeline.
• Use the browser for one or two documents, when you want to see the pages and click the ones you need, or when installing packages and editing policy files is not worth it.
• Either way the result is the same class of image: the browser renders with Mozilla PDF.js, the engine Firefox uses to display PDFs, at the resolution you choose.
• Nothing has to be installed for the browser route: Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Brave and Edge all run it as-is, with no extension or add-on.

Convert the PDF in Firefox or Chrome

A long conversion runs inside the tab, so keep it open until the progress panel reaches the number of pages you selected. Nothing is written to disk until you choose to download, and the document is never handed to a scratch file by us: the browser keeps the rendered pages in memory and releases them when the job ends or you start over.

1. 1Open the converter in any current browser. No extension, package or Flatpak is involved.
2. 2Drag your PDF onto the drop zone, or press Choose PDF Files to open the native file picker, which starts in your home directory.
3. 3Every page is selected at first. Click page previews to include or exclude pages, or type a range such as 1, 3, 5-8.
4. 4Choose 150 DPI for screen use or 300 DPI for printing. On a machine with little free memory, stay at 150.
5. 5Press Convert to JPG and watch the progress line name each page as your machine renders it.
6. 6Download the images one at a time, or press Download all as ZIP for the whole document.

Where the converted images are saved

Firefox and Chrome both follow the XDG user directories, so the default destination is the same Downloads folder your file manager shows in its sidebar. On the vast majority of desktops and distributions that is ~/Downloads.

• Firefox: ~/Downloads, unless you ticked "Always ask you where to save files" in Settings › General. Finished downloads appear in the toolbar arrow and in about:downloads.
• Chrome, Chromium and Brave: ~/Downloads by default, checked or changed in Settings › Downloads. Ctrl+J opens the downloads page at any time.
• GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce and Cinnamon all bookmark Downloads, so the files are one click away in Nautilus, Dolphin, Thunar or Nemo.
• Flatpak and Snap builds of Firefox and Chrome are sandboxed, so the file picker goes through the desktop portal rather than a raw path picker. The default destination is still your real Downloads folder.
• A ZIP lands beside the images. Every desktop file manager unpacks it on double-click, and unzip does the same job from the terminal.
• If your home directory is small, move the images afterwards or convert at 150 DPI to keep them lighter.

Notes for privacy-focused distributions

Tails, Whonix and similar systems exist so that a document does not end up on someone else’s server, which is exactly what a browser-side converter avoids. There is no upload step: the file is read from your disk into the tab and rendered there, and there is no account, email address or signup involved.

The page and its rendering engine are ordinary site files, so they load over the network the first time you open it. After that the conversion is local, and no request carries your PDF, its pages or its text anywhere. You can check that on any distribution: press F12, open the Network tab and convert — the only requests are for the page and its assets.

• Works offline once the page has loaded: open the converter, add your file, wait for the previews, then disconnect the network and press Convert. On Tails or Whonix that is a reasonable way to be certain. Reloading with no connection will not work, because the page itself has to load first.
• On Whonix, do the work in the browser inside the Workstation, on the machine that holds the file, rather than on the Gateway.
• Tor Browser may ask for permission to read canvas image data. Turning a rendered page into an image file is exactly that operation, so the prompt is expected; allow it for this page if you want the images, and note that declining it stops the download step.
• Memory on a live system comes from RAM, so a very large document at 300 DPI can exhaust it. Convert in page ranges at 150 DPI on a live USB, and start over to release the finished pages.
• Tails forgets the session when you shut down, so copy anything you need to a persistent volume or an encrypted stick before you close the tab.
• The images are as sensitive as the original: an exported JPG contains that page, so store and send it with the same care as the PDF it came from.