pdftoppm(1)                 General Commands Manual                pdftoppm(1)



NAME
       pdftoppm - Portable Document Format (PDF) to Portable Pixmap (PPM) con-
       verter (version 4.06)

SYNOPSIS
       pdftoppm [options] PDF-file PPM-root

DESCRIPTION
       Pdftoppm converts Portable Document Format (PDF) files to  color  image
       files  in Portable Pixmap (PPM) format, grayscale image files in Porta-
       ble Graymap (PGM) format, or monochrome image files in Portable  Bitmap
       (PBM) format.

       Pdftoppm reads the PDF file, PDF-file, and writes one PPM file for each
       page, PPM-root-nnnnnn.ppm, where nnnnnn is the page  number.   If  PPM-
       root  is '-', the image is sent to stdout (this is probably only useful
       when converting a single page).

CONFIGURATION FILE
       Pdftoppm reads a configuration file at startup.  It first tries to find
       the  user's  private config file, ~/.xpdfrc.  If that doesn't exist, it
       looks for a system-wide config file, typically  /etc/xpdfrc  (but  this
       location can be changed when pdftoppm is built).  See the xpdfrc(5) man
       page for details.

OPTIONS
       Many of the following options can be set with configuration  file  com-
       mands.  These are listed in square brackets with the description of the
       corresponding command line option.

       -f number
              Specifies the first page to convert.

       -l number
              Specifies the last page to convert.

       -r number
              Specifies the resolution, in DPI.  The default is 150 DPI.

       -mono  Generate a monochrome PBM file (instead of an RGB PPM file).

       -gray  Generate a grayscale PGM file (instead of an RGB PPM file).

       -cmyk  Generate a CMYK PAM file (instead of an RGB PPM file).

       -rot angle
              Rotate pages by 0 (the default), 90, 180, or 270 degrees.

       -freetype yes | no
              Enable or disable FreeType (a TrueType /  Type  1  font  raster-
              izer).  This defaults to "yes".  [config file: enableFreeType]

       -aa yes | no
              Enable  or  disable font anti-aliasing.  This defaults to "yes".
              [config file: antialias]

       -aaVector yes | no
              Enable or disable vector anti-aliasing.  This defaults to "yes".
              [config file: vectorAntialias]

       -opw password
              Specify  the  owner  password  for the PDF file.  Providing this
              will bypass all security restrictions.

       -upw password
              Specify the user password for the PDF file.

       -verbose
              Print a status message (to stdout) before processing each  page.
              [config file: printStatusInfo]

       -q     Don't print any messages or errors.  [config file: errQuiet]

       -cfg config-file
              Read config-file in place of ~/.xpdfrc or the system-wide config
              file.

       -v     Print copyright and version information.

       -h     Print usage information.  (-help and --help are equivalent.)

EXIT CODES
       The Xpdf tools use the following exit codes:

       0      No error.

       1      Error opening a PDF file.

       2      Error opening an output file.

       3      Error related to PDF permissions.

       98     Out of memory.

       99     Other error.

AUTHOR
       The pdftoppm software and documentation are copyright 1996-2025 Glyph &
       Cog, LLC.

SEE ALSO
       xpdf(1),   pdftops(1),  pdftotext(1),  pdftohtml(1),  pdfinfo(1),  pdf-
       fonts(1), pdfdetach(1), pdftopng(1), pdfimages(1), xpdfrc(5)
       http://www.xpdfreader.com/



                                  14 Nov 2025                      pdftoppm(1)
