pdf2image

A python3 module that wraps the pdftoppm utility to convert PDF to a PIL Image object

How to install

pip3 install pdf2image

Install Pillow if you don't have it already with pip3 install pillow

pdftoppm is the piece of software that does the actual magic. It is distributed as part of a greater package called poppler.

Windows users will have to install poppler for Windows

Mac users will have to install poppler for Mac

Linux users will have pdftoppm pre-installed with the distro (Tested on Ubuntu and Archlinux) if it's not, run sudo apt install poppler-utils

How does it work?

from pdf2image import convert_from_path, convert_from_bytes

Then simply do:

images = convert_from_path('/home/kankroc/example.pdf')

images = convert_from_bytes(open('/home/kankroc/example.pdf', 'rb').read())

OR better yet

import tempfile

with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as path:
     images_from_path = convert_from_path('/home/kankroc/example.pdf', output_folder=path)
     # Do something here

images will be a list of PIL Image representing each page of the PDF document.

Here are the definitions:

convert_from_path(pdf_path, dpi=200, output_folder=None, first_page=None, last_page=None, fmt='ppm')

convert_from_bytes(pdf_file, dpi=200, output_folder=None, first_page=None, last_page=None, fmt='ppm')

What's new?

first_page parameter allows you to set a first page to be processed by pdftoppm (-f in the cli of pdftoppm)
last_page parameter allows you to set a last page to be processed by pdftoppm (-l in the cli of pdftoppm)
fmt parameter allows you to specify an output format. Currently supported formats are jpg, png, and ppm

Timing

You can reproduce those results by running the provided tests. The process' peak memory usage was added to help the comparison and was gathered using the memory_profiler module.

The time in second is on a per-page basis. The suffix _X is how many page were converted.

All tests were ran with the default 200 dpi resolution.

My computer has an SSD. Run python3 tests.py for the timing on your machine.

Test name	sec/page	Peak memory usage
test_conversion_from_bytes	0.08025979995727539 sec	69.7 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_14	0.07791144507271903 sec	348.1 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_14_last_page_12	0.015511631965637207 sec	219.9 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_14_first_page_2_last_page_12	0.053603836468287876 sec	283.9 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_14_last_page_12	0.05721770014081683 sec	305.3 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_241	0.040824553778557364 sec	5210.9 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_using_dir	0.13207364082336426 sec	2643.0 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_using_dir_14	0.05664423533848354 sec	2643.0 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_using_dir_14_first_page_12	0.0180361270904541 sec	2643.0 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_using_dir_14_first_page_2_last_page_12	0.07084715366363525 sec	2643.0 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_using_dir_14_last_page_12	0.06571905953543526 sec	2643.0 MiB
test_conversion_from_bytes_using_dir_241	0.03664693001394945 sec	177.4 MiB
test_conversion_from_path	0.041847944259643555 sec	177.4 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_14	0.06815803050994873 sec	347.7 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_14_first_page_12	0.013361079352242606 sec	177.4 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_14_first_page_2_last_page_12	0.06226999419076102 sec	284.3 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_14_last_page_12	0.06276893615722656 sec	305.7 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_241	0.04187167630650691 sec	5210.2 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_using_dir	0.1171102523803711 sec	2642.3 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_using_dir_14	0.05710525172097342 sec	2642.3 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_using_dir_14_first_page_12	0.0152871949332101 sec	2642.3 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_using_dir_14_first_page_2_last_page_12	0.04539140633174351 sec	2642.3 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_using_dir_14_last_page_12	0.05119928291865757 sec	2642.3 MiB
test_conversion_from_path_using_dir_241	0.03425470724145407 sec	177.4 MiB
test_conversion_to_jpeg_from_bytes_14	0.0022412879126412527 sec	177.4 MiB
test_conversion_to_jpeg_from_path_using_dir_14	0.002368075507027762 sec	177.4 MiB
test_conversion_to_png_from_bytes_14	0.010121209280831473 sec	177.4 MiB
test_conversion_to_png_from_path_using_dir_14	0.010833195277622767 sec	177.4 MiB
test_empty_if_corrupted_pdf	0.008587360382080078 sec	177.4 MiB
test_empty_if_file_not_found	0.008152961730957031 sec	177.4 MiB
test_empty_if_not_pdf	0.01006937026977539 sec	177.4 MiB

Bottom line: Use an output folder

Exception handling

There are no exception thrown by pdftoppm therefore any file that couldn't be convert/processed will return an empty Image list. The philosophy behind this choice is simple, if the file was corrupted / not found, no image could be extracted and returning an empty list makes sense. (This is up for discussion)

Limitations / known issues

A relatively big PDF will use up all your memory and cause the process to be killed (unless you use an output folder)

XingxingZhang / pdf2image