How to convert a PDF page to an image using Nodejs

#javascript #pdf #image

Recently, I had to work on a project where I was required to get the the cover page of pdf being sent to the server on each request. It was quite challenging because there were not enough resources to learn how to automate this task. I found a package which helped me, so I decided to share with the community!.

Project setup

RootFolder --
            |-pdfFileFolder --
                             |-myFile.pdf
            |-pdfImageFolder
            |-converter.js
            |-package.json

Install third party library

To effectively carry out this task, we need to install a third party library called pdf-poppler

npm i pdf-poppler

Code

copy the following line of code into the file labelled convert.js

import {default as pdfConverter} from 'pdf-poppler'
import path from 'path'

function convertImage(pdfPath) {

    let option = {
        format : 'jpeg',
        out_dir : 'C:\\Users\\user\\Desktop\\RootFolder\\pdfImageFolder',
        out_prefix : path.basename(pdfPath, path.extname(pdfPath)),
        page : 1
    }
// option.out_dir value is the path where the image will be saved

    pdfConverter.convert(pdfPath, option)
    .then(() => {
        console.log('file converted')
    })
    .catch(err => {
        console.log('an error has occurred in the pdf converter ' + err)
    })

}

export default convertImage

The convertImage function contains an argument which is the path to the PDF file to be converted to an image. This function with it's argument can be called in any file where needed.

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Top comments (7)

tdnine • Jan 7 '22

Hi, nice article and i followed it - it works fine for jpeg and png, but when i try tiff format it throws up an error. I am on a windows machine, so apparently it should work. The errors i received are

1) Command failed: -tiff -scale-to 1024

2) A list of syntax errors as such with various different fonts
Syntax Error: No display font for 'ArialNarrow'

3) Error writing TIFF header.

I tried with a scale property in options object with value set to 2048 and 4096. But both throwed up same errors as previous with the new scale values in error message.

Any suggestions why would this be happening, anybody else had the similar issue?

Thanks