Many documents are stored as PDF files. And PDF is great, really! PDF stands for Portable Document Format, and the idea behind it is that it can’t be edited, so if you want to produce something that everyone can read (Adobe makes their PDF reading software available for Mac, Windows and Linux, and other programs, such as Apple’s own Preview, read PDF as well), so anyone who gets your PDF document should have no trouble reading it. Unfortunately, PDF isn’t great for everything.
It’s not all that great for uploading to websites, for one, since all web browsers require a plugin to display PDF, which can be kind of messy. Usually a PDF will need to be converted to a different format before editing and/or uploading to the Web, typically to JPG or PNG.
There are many ways to go about doing the conversion process. In this article we’ll show a very simple way to convert PDF to PNG on the Mac (although the same process can just as easily be used to convert to TIFF or GIF or JPG or XCF), using a program called Seashore, which can be downloaded here.
Using Seashore to Convert PDF to PNG
Our method uses an image editor for Mac called Seashore. Why Seashore? It’s based on code used in The GIMP, but unlike The GIMP, installs as a native Mac OS X application. It’s fast and easy to use, and converting from one format to another is as simple as opening the image, then immediately saving it using your preferred format. Plus, it’s completely free and open source. So, let’s go through the process.
The first step is to open the PDF in Seashore. To do this, simply right-click icon of the PDF you want to convert. Navigate in the pop-up menu to the Open With menu, then from the list presented, choose Seashore.
Seashore will quickly load, but instead of the PDF, a new window will appear.
You can only open a single page of a PDF in Seashore, so if you have a multi-page document, this will be a bit time-consuming, but chances are you’ll only use this method for converting images or screenshots, so there’s not much to think about.
The little window that popped up instead of the PDF is asking you to choose a resolution for the converted image. If you’ll be converting this for uploading to the Web, 72 dpi (dots per inch) should be fine. Higher resolutions (150-300 dpi) are better for printing, but will also result in a larger file size.
Click OK and in a second the PDF will load in Seashore, as shown below.
One thing to note, if this is the first time you’ve opened a PDF in Seashore, is the warning displayed immediately above the image.
PDF files can’t be edited in Seashore. What? Seashore is an image editor, you say? And didn’t we just open the PDF in Seashore? Yes, of course it is, but to clarify, you can perform editing functions, such as cropping, rotating, annotating, and more, but when you’re ready to save those changes, the original file will not be affected. All changes must be saved to a new file. For a single image, this isn’t an issue, but if you have a multi-page document, none of the changes will be present in the original.
So, now that you’ve messed around with Seashore, made any changes you wanted to make, and are now ready to convert to PNG, what’s the next step?
First, go to the menu bar and select the File menu. Now, choose the Save As option.
Note: You could also choose the Export option, since in this case the feature we want (to choose a different image format), is available.
A new modal dialog will appear, asking you to provide a new name for your image, as well as a location.
Now select the pop-up menu (it should say GIMP image by default), which is where you’ll pick the image format. Click it and the following menu will appear, showing all available format options.
In this how-to we’re using PNG, but if you need JPG, or a GIMP file, GIF or TIFF, all are available. Once you’ve selected a name for the file, a save location and the format, simply click the Save button, and you’re all finished.
This is a very easy method to convert PDF to PNG. It’s not necessarily the fastest method (using a command line program like Imagemagick can accomplish the same task using a single typed command), but for point-and-click ease, it’s hard to beat.
