Convert PDF to TIFF (TIF) images

To convert PDF to TIFF, select or drop your PDF on this page, choose a Resolution and press Convert to TIFF. Every page is drawn as a picture, and all the pages go into one multi-page TIFF file, in the same order as the PDF. You do not get a ZIP of separate pictures, and a one-page PDF gives a one-page TIFF.

We tested this PDF to TIFF converter with a three-page A4 PDF: text and simple drawings on page one, a photo on page two and 30 lines of text on page three. At the preset 300 DPI it came back as report.tiff, a single 2.3 MB file holding all three pages, each 2480 × 3509 pixels. The file keeps the name of your PDF and ends in .tiff.

The pages are stored with LZW, a lossless compression: it makes the file smaller without changing a single pixel. Each page is a full-colour picture of the PDF page, so its text is part of the image. You cannot select, search or copy it, and lines no longer stay sharp when you zoom in. To keep the words, convert PDF to text, or convert the PDF to Word for a document you can edit.

Resolution, in dots per inch (DPI), sets how many pixels each page gets. You can pick 96, 150 or 300 DPI. For TIFF the setting starts on 300, because a TIFF is usually wanted for print or an archive; PDF to PNG, JPG and WebP start on 150. These are the sizes from our three-page test PDF:

The TIFF also stores the resolution it was made at, so print and archive software can tell the real size of each page: 2480 pixels at 300 DPI is the 210 mm width of A4. A US Letter page comes out at 2550 × 3300 pixels at 300 DPI. Higher settings, such as 600 DPI, are not offered.

TIFF suits jobs where every page must stay exact and the size of the file matters less: a print shop that asks for TIFF, a records archive, or scanner and document software that takes nothing else. Because nothing is thrown away, small print and fine lines keep the detail they had at the resolution you picked.

That detail takes space. At 300 DPI the photo page of our test came to 1,050 KB as TIFF against 595 KB as PNG, and the page of 30 text lines to 870 KB against 625 KB. For sharing, email or a website, PDF to PNG gives smaller lossless pictures, and PDF to JPG smaller ones still for photos.

This TIFF is in full colour with LZW compression. It is not the black-and-white fax kind of TIFF (CCITT compression) that some fax services and older document systems ask for, so if yours names a particular TIFF type, check it before you send the file.

The page limit for TIFF is 50. A longer PDF is refused as soon as you send it, before anything converts, with a message that gives its page count and the limit. Split it and convert the parts, or choose PNG, where the limit is 100 and you get a ZIP with one picture per page.

Pages of different sizes are made one size in the TIFF: every page takes the width of the widest page and the height of the tallest, and white fills the gap. In our test, a PDF with one portrait and one landscape A4 page gave two square pages of 1755 × 1755 pixels at 150 DPI.

Slides go the same way: convert PowerPoint to TIFF gives one TIFF with every slide in order. To turn a TIFF back into a PDF, convert TIFF to PDF: each page becomes a PDF page again, though its text stays a picture. Starting from a single picture instead, convert PNG to TIFF in your browser, or use the image converter for a JPG. For the format itself, read what is a TIFF file.