How to make screenshot of PDF cover (first page) using command line?
Showing list of PDF to downloads could be enhanced with
thumbnails of PDF first page, usually cover. This could be used
in books catalog, product catalogs etc. Creating thumbnails
manually is tedious. This can be automated with
pdftoppm command.
To create screenshot of PDF's first page use following command:
pdftoppm -png -f 1 -l 1 test2.pdf > cover.png
The explanation of command options:
-
-png- instructspdftoppmto create image in PNG format instead of PPM. Can also be used-jpegfor JPG format. -
-f 1- First page to print -
-l 1- Last page to print
After command options we provide PDF file name. The command
outputs directly to stdout. To save file we need to redirect
output using > operator.
If you feel that generated image have too large dimensions, use
external too to resize. Using options of pdftoppm
will not yield good results.
Example of in-place PDF cover resize:
mogrify -resize 600x600 cover.png
The mogrify command is a part of Imagemagick
package and its equivalent of convert command,
but does overwrite source file, a.k.a. in-place conversion.
