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Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/apache/pdfbox/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

PDFBox can rasterize any PDF page into a Java BufferedImage. The PDFRenderer class handles the rendering pipeline, and ImageIO writes the result to disk. This is useful for thumbnails, previews, and document conversion pipelines.

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Rendering a page to BufferedImage

Create a PDFRenderer from an open PDDocument, then call renderImage() (scale-based) or renderImageWithDPI() (DPI-based).
RenderPage.java
import org.apache.pdfbox.Loader;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument;
import org.apache.pdfbox.rendering.PDFRenderer;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;

try (PDDocument document = Loader.loadPDF(new File("input.pdf")))
{
    PDFRenderer pdfRenderer = new PDFRenderer(document);

    // Render page 0 at 72 DPI (scale = 1)
    BufferedImage image = pdfRenderer.renderImage(0);
}

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Method signatures

From PDFRenderer.java, the available rendering methods are:
PDFRenderer.java
// Render at 72 DPI (scale = 1), RGB
public BufferedImage renderImage(int pageIndex) throws IOException

// Render at a given scale (1 = 72 DPI), RGB
public BufferedImage renderImage(int pageIndex, float scale) throws IOException

// Render at a given scale with a specific ImageType
public BufferedImage renderImage(int pageIndex, float scale, ImageType imageType)
        throws IOException

// Render at an explicit DPI, RGB
public BufferedImage renderImageWithDPI(int pageIndex, float dpi) throws IOException

// Render at an explicit DPI with a specific ImageType
public BufferedImage renderImageWithDPI(int pageIndex, float dpi, ImageType imageType)
        throws IOException
All methods use a zero-based page index.

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Saving as PNG or JPEG

Pass the BufferedImage to ImageIO.write() with the desired format string: 
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;

BufferedImage image = pdfRenderer.renderImageWithDPI(0, 150);
ImageIO.write(image, "PNG", new File("page-0.png"));
JPEG does not support transparency. Use ImageType.RGB (not ARGB) when saving as JPEG, or the output may appear with a black background.

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DPI and image quality

The default renderImage(pageIndex) renders at 72 DPI (1 point = 1 pixel). Use renderImageWithDPI() for explicit control:
Use caseRecommended DPI
Screen preview / thumbnail72–96
On-screen display96–150
Print-ready output150–300
High-resolution archiving300–600
DPI examples
PDFRenderer renderer = new PDFRenderer(document);

// 72 DPI — default screen quality
BufferedImage screen = renderer.renderImage(0);

// 150 DPI — good balance of quality and file size
BufferedImage medium = renderer.renderImageWithDPI(0, 150);

// 300 DPI — suitable for printing
BufferedImage print = renderer.renderImageWithDPI(0, 300);
Higher DPI produces larger images. A US Letter page (8.5×11 in) at 300 DPI is 2550×3300 pixels. Memory usage scales with the square of the DPI increase.

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ImageType options

The ImageType enum controls the color model of the output BufferedImage:
ValueDescriptionBufferedImage type
RGBRed, Green, Blue (default)TYPE_INT_RGB
ARGBAlpha, Red, Green, BlueTYPE_INT_ARGB
GRAYShades of grayTYPE_BYTE_GRAY
BINARYBlack or white onlyTYPE_BYTE_BINARY
BGRBlue, Green, RedTYPE_3BYTE_BGR
ImageType usage
import org.apache.pdfbox.rendering.ImageType;

// Grayscale — smaller file size, no color
BufferedImage gray = renderer.renderImageWithDPI(0, 150, ImageType.GRAY);

// ARGB — preserves transparency
BufferedImage transparent = renderer.renderImageWithDPI(0, 150, ImageType.ARGB);

// BINARY — black and white only, smallest size
BufferedImage bw = renderer.renderImageWithDPI(0, 150, ImageType.BINARY);

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Rendering all pages

Loop over all pages by index and save each one:
RenderAllPages.java
import org.apache.pdfbox.Loader;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument;
import org.apache.pdfbox.rendering.ImageType;
import org.apache.pdfbox.rendering.PDFRenderer;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;

try (PDDocument document = Loader.loadPDF(new File("input.pdf")))
{
    PDFRenderer pdfRenderer = new PDFRenderer(document);
    int pageCount = document.getNumberOfPages();

    for (int page = 0; page < pageCount; ++page)
    {
        BufferedImage bim = pdfRenderer.renderImageWithDPI(page, 300, ImageType.RGB);
        ImageIO.write(bim, "PNG", new File("page-" + page + ".png"));
    }
}
For large documents, render pages one at a time and write each to disk before moving to the next. This avoids keeping all rendered images in memory simultaneously.

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Custom rendering with PageDrawer

PDFRenderer can be subclassed to customise how pages are drawn. Override createPageDrawer() to return a custom PageDrawer subclass. OpaquePDFRenderer in the PDFBox examples module demonstrates this pattern — it replaces the default transparency group handling to produce opaque output suitable for printing on certain drivers:
OpaquePDFRenderer.java
import org.apache.pdfbox.rendering.PDFRenderer;
import org.apache.pdfbox.rendering.PageDrawer;
import org.apache.pdfbox.rendering.PageDrawerParameters;

public class OpaquePDFRenderer extends PDFRenderer
{
    public OpaquePDFRenderer(PDDocument document)
    {
        super(document);
    }

    @Override
    protected PageDrawer createPageDrawer(PageDrawerParameters parameters)
            throws IOException
    {
        // return a custom PageDrawer implementation here
        return new MyPageDrawer(parameters);
    }
}
Use this approach when you need to intercept rendering operations, skip certain content types, or apply custom transformations during rendering.

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