Convert TXT to PNG, one image for each page

To convert text to PNG, press Select TXT file or drop a .txt file on the tool above, keep 150 DPI or pick another Resolution, and press Convert to PNG. Every page of the file comes back as a lossless PNG image. This text to PNG converter works from a saved file, not from words typed into a box: to put a short line of your own words on a picture, use Add text to image instead.

Behind the button there are two steps, graded Picture-perfect: the text is set on A4 pages as if for printing, then each page is drawn as a PNG. A line holds 80 characters. A longer line wraps at the last space that fits, and a run with no spaces, such as a long web address, is split at the 80th character. Blank lines stay, so your paragraphs keep their gaps.

Each PNG is the whole page, margins included: dark letters on plain white, with no transparency. PNG stores every pixel exactly, with no blur from compression, so the edges of the letters stay crisp when you zoom in. They are pixels now, though, and nobody can select, search or copy them. When the words must stay words, convert text to PDF instead.

Resolution sets how many pixels each A4 page gets, and how full the page is decides most of the file size. These are our test pages:

A longer file is cut wherever a page fills up, and every page becomes its own PNG, all in one ZIP. The 100-page limit is counted after the layout step, so a file that runs over is stopped there, with a message giving the count it came to. Our test file of 7,000 short lines came to 110 and was stopped, while a file of a few thousand short lines fits.

Is a JPG smaller? Barely, for text. The same full page at 150 DPI came to about 410 KB as a JPG at Balanced quality, against about 490 KB as a PNG, and zoomed in, the JPG had faint grey specks around every letter where the PNG had clean white. Our guide to JPEG vs PNG explains where each format wins.

A text file holds no fonts or styles, so the PNG can only show what the layout step makes of the characters. In our tests:

• Columns separated by tabs drifted out of line, because the page sets its tab stops differently from most text editors. Where columns matter, separate them with spaces, not tabs.
• Accents and symbols such as é, ü, ñ, € and £ came through from a UTF-8 file.
• Greek, Cyrillic and Arabic letters were drawn as written.
• Chinese and Japanese came out as empty boxes, and so do Korean and Hindi, because our server has no font for them.

Many people who search for text to PNG want a few typed words as an image, often on a see-through background. This converter cannot make that: it needs a file, it draws a whole A4 page on white, and it offers no choice of font or colour. Add text to image, linked at the top of this page, writes a caption, title or label on a picture you already have, in Inter Bold or Anton at the size and colour you pick, and can save the result as a PNG.

Text that already sits in a formatted file is better turned into a picture from that file: convert Word to PNG for a document with headings, bold and pictures, convert PowerPoint to PNG for one image per slide, and convert HTML to PNG for a saved web page.