The JPEG file format is the most common format for photos, pictures and digital artwork. It stands for joint photographic experts group (put that in your trivia night pocket). What most people don’t realize is that a JPEG (also JPG) is a compressed file. It’s taken lots of layers of colors, lines, and light and squished them into a JPEG so it’s easier to use online.

JPEG file formats have a lot of benefits. JPEGs are also compatible with almost any image editing software and don’t have overly large file sizes. In fact, if you do have a large one, and you moderately reduce its size, you rarely lose quality online. 

With JPEG being so versatile, it can sometimes be beneficial to convert a PDF into a JPEG, but the use case is not very common. PDFs can have multiple pages. JPEGs are single “pages.” In fact, it’s more common to convert JPEG to PDF, so you can create multi-page photo albums, look books or e-books.

Still, you asked, so we’re answering. In this article, we’ll be going through how to perform the conversion PDF to JPG on most devices. 

How to Convert a PDF to JPEG on Mac

Open the Preview app and use the app to open the PDF you want to export as a JPEG. For example, this handsome fellow may be on a specific page of a multi-page PDF and you want him as a JPEG.

photo of a wolf dog with light blue eyes to use as an example for changing pdfs to jpegs in pdf live

Once you navigate to the page that you want as a JPEG, go to File > Export. The menu that pops up should look like this:

screenshot showing how to convert an image from a pdf to a jpeg

Here, you’ll see several different options for file formats you can export the page of the PDF as. You can also choose the folder where the JPEG will be stored. Then, hit save. 

screenshot showing options for converting a pdf to a jpeg

Preview can only export one page of a PDF into a JPEG at a time. Multiple pages in a single JPEG would result in an incredibly large single JPEG file. If you need a single document with multiple pages, the PDF is meant for this.

If you have multiple JPEGs that need to be in a single document, consider converting them into a PDF file with PDF.Live’s online JPG to PDF Converter. As with any JPG to PDF converter, PDF.Live converts one JPEG at a time; then, you can use the merge feature to combine several PDFs into one, and arrange the pages as you like.   

How to Convert a PDF to JPEG on Windows

Windows does not come with a PDF viewer built into the system. However, you can download an app like Adobe Acrobat that allows you to open and edit PDFs. This app also allows you to export PDFs in any format that you need to. Here is how to do it on Acrobat:

  1. Open the PDF file with Acrobat.
  2. On the toolbar, select “Export PDF”
  3. In the export menu, select Image > JPEG
  4. Leave the “export all images” unchecked and then Export

Alternatively, you can use a free PDF to JPEG app on the Microsoft Store. The ClearBar App, for example, is a Windows desktop alternative that includes built-in PDF conversion tools. Other options also exist on the Microsoft store, depending on what specific features you’re looking for. 

With most PDF to JPG converters, you can only export one page of the PDF into a JPEG at a time. Or, the converter will convert the multiple pages into several different JPEG files. JPEGs have resolutions (e.g. 500×800) and don’t work well with multiple images within a single file. A single file with multiple pages would have a very high resolution and look extremely oblong. They wouldn’t be usable on most devices. PDFs are better for storing multiple images within a single file. 

Consider using PDF.Live’s online JPG to PDF Converter if you need to have multiple JPGs in a single file to send around online.