New look and more Reliability

I'll admit that PDF IMG's availability has been shit for a while and I apologize. Many of the downtimes have been caused by people uploading PDF files and then using PDF IMG's DPI settings to massively increase the output size, which caused the Java virtual machine to eat up all available memory and more or less exit.

Today, I've rolled out a new build that attempts to solve this problem by limiting the in-memory size of a converted image to 250 MB and also re-using previously generated image buffers. This new limit will only affect around 0.02 % of all visitors.

I hope this will make PDF IMG much more stable and reliable.

The downside is that, when you convert PDF files to images now, your output images may be smaller than than you had in mind.

In other news, PDF IMG has been upgraded to Bootstrap 2.3.1. Below, you can see the old and the new looks.

I've also ported some new technology from the new media.io over to PDF IMG which will increase the website's performance.

Domain Sharding for faster PDF to Image Conversion

Speed is extremely important to me and all of my web applications feature many tweaks to make them load really fast.

With the latest version of PDF IMG, I have added domain sharding which will speed up loading of the thumbnail images.

When you convert PDF to Images on PDF IMG, your preview thumbnails will load faster.

Better URL importing

I’ve just released a new version of PDF IMG that improves converting PDF to Images from URLs.

More specifically, the new version supports the Content-Disposition HTTP header, as well as offering better diagnostics and error handling.

Enjoy!

Convert PDF files from a URL at PDF IMG

One feature that was requested several times was the ability to convert PDF files from a URL. PDF IMG now supports importing PDF files from URLs.

And, as you would expect, it is very easy to do so.

Go to PDF IMG and enter the URL of the PDF file in the “Import a URL” text field.

PDF IMG with new URL import.

Next, select the output format and set the options (DPI, greyscale and passwords) if you need to. Click “Convert PDF to Images!” and you’re done.

Since this is a new feature, I encourage you to report problems through the user survey, the UserVoice forum or by email.

PDF IMG now in German

In preparation for a number of things to come, I have released a new version of PDF IMG that supports I18N – internationalization for those not into programming.

The first language to be supported is German. Expect to see versions in Spanish and other languages soon.

The next feature that will be implemented is the possibility to import PDF files from URLs. Stay tuned for this feature.

In the mean time, enjoy converting your PDFs at PDF IMG.

TIFF bug fix

I’ve just uploaded new version of PDF IMG that fixes PDF to TIFF conversions. Conversions to TIFF didn’t work for a while and this release fixes them.

As always, if you have questions, feel free to post a comment or take the PDF IMG survey.

Less Features for more fun

A new version of PDF IMG has been released for a couple of days now and here is the list of changes that went into this release:

Bug Fixes

• Some PDF files protected by a password weren’t marked as such. All password protected PDF files should now be identified correctly.
• An infinite loop of AJAX requests was occasionally possible. This has been fixed.
• Repeat uploads would create new conversions, which was unexpected. If you upload the same PDF file a second time now, the new settings will overwrite the previous conversion.

Page Ranges feature removed

PDF IMG initially allowed users to convert only parts of their PDF files. However, this feature was used by less than 1 % of users and therefore removed.

Compression Quality removed

PDF IMG also allowed selecting the JPEG compression quality for users converting PDF files to JPEG. Ironically, this feature wasn’t wired up behind the scenes and consequently never did anything.

Better Performance, new Features and more News

Using Bootstrap

I’ve converted most of my sites to Bootstrap now, including PDF IMG. Bootstrap gives my sites a nice, easy-to-use layout that the visitors seem to like.

ZIP Downloads

PDF IMG will now let you download all images in one ZIP file. This replaces the previously used switch between converting PDF files to individual images or saving them in a ZIP file directly.

Thumbnails

PDF IMG will now show you thumbnails of the PDF you are just converting. This makes browsing your PDF file easier.

PDF IMG thumbnails.

Feedback for missing passwords

Since PDF IMG supports password-protected PDF files, there is now an extra message in case the user forgot to enter a password. In case you’re wondering how to enter a password – the option is visible when you click on “options.”

Support for users who have cookies disabled

PDF IMG now lets you convert PDF files even if you have cookies disabled.

Performance Improvements

I frequently port back performance improvements from other sites like invx.com or media.io back to my other sites.

That’s it for this time. I hope you try out PDF IMG.

PDF IMG Updates and News

I know it’s been a while since the last post but let me summarize what happened in the mean time.

Bug Fixes

• Several bug fixes in the file handling logic have been fixed.
• Several characters in file names are now removed, which means you’ll get files back the way you expect them.
• I didn’t have any monitoring for this blog so it disappeared for a while. I now have a test that verifies this blog loads.
• AJAX bug fixes for Internet Explorer. This will help with Internet Explorer users in corporate environments.

New Features

• PDF IMG was moved from a HostEurope VPS to the same ultra-powerful dedicated server that media.io runs on. This means faster conversions for you.
• I started monitoring the uptime of PDF IMG. Currently, it’s not as good as it could be because I miscalculated PDF IMG’s memory requirements several times.

Other changes

• The website has seen different design changes with the goal of increasing conversion rates.
• The website’s performance was increased several times. As with media.io, I am constantly improving load times.
• Several features were ported from media.io to PDF IMG.

Welcome to PDF IMG

PDF IMG is a site that lets you convert PDF to images online.

How to use PDF IMG

1. Go to http://pdfimg.net.
2. Click on "Browse" or "..." to select your PDF file. Note that you can upload ZIP and TAR archives as well. Make sure what you upload is smaller than 650 MB.
3. Select the image format to convert your PDF files to. You can choose between
   1. JPEG (.jpg extension)
   2. TIFF (.tiff extension)
   3. BMP (.bmp extension)
   4. PNG (.png extension)
   5. If you want to change the amount of DPI, enter the number of dots per inches in the "DPI" field. For now, up to 1000 DPI are supported.
   6. If any of your files is protected with a password, you can enter the password by clicking the "enter a password" link. Note that passwords are never saved on disk for security reasons.
   7. If you want to convert pages to grey scale, check the "convert colors to grey scale" checkbox.
   8. Click on "Convert" to start the conversion.
   9. That’s it! On the next screen, you will be able to download your images once pdfimg.net has converted them.

Your Comments and Questions

If you would like to know more about pdfimg.net, please feel free to follow @pdfimg on Twitter, subscribe to this blog’s news feed or send me an email. Thanks!

An early version of PDF IMG.