[sciurius]

It would be nice to be able to save/export a pdf as a bitmap image.

For example:

Code: [Select]

    $pdf->savepage_as_image( "out.png", 1 );                # saves page #1
    $page->save_as_image( "thispage.jpg" );                 # saves this $page
or even:

Code: [Select]

   $pdf->save_as_image( "page%04d.png" );              # save all pages in numbered files
<give number CTS 6 -- Mod.>

[Phil]

That's an interesting proposition. Don't forget SVG, too!

I suspect that this would not be a trivial exercise. As a shortcut, there already are utilities to convert a PDF to an image file. I know that "GIMP" can import PDF files and then save them in any image format. Something like that might be a better choice than re-inventing the wheel.

See also the wkHTMLtoImage package (associated with wkHTMLtoPDF).

[Phil]

 PhilterPaper commented on Sep 24

Since directly outputting various image formats (pixel or vector) would seem to be a huge undertaking, and utilities already exist to convert PDF to image, I'm not sure this is worth the effort. If someone can suggest methods that are a simple plug-in library or something similar (rather than writing it from scratch), I would be willing to take another look at it. There might be three approaches:

• convert PDF data structures to graphics during page output
• invoke an external utility (under the covers) to convert a just-written PDF file to image
• directly write calls as graphics data rather than PDF primitives, but this threatens to be a huge task

PhilterPaper closed this on Sep 24
PhilterPaper added the wontfix label on Oct 1