Generate PDF Thumbnails

Generate_PDF_Thumbnails.md

Generate Thumbnail for a Single PDF

To create image thumbnails from a PDF document, run this in a terminal window:

convert -thumbnail x300 -background white -alpha remove input_file.pdf[0] output_thumbnail.png

Generate Thumbnails for an Entire Folder of PDFs

for f in *.pdf; do convert -thumbnail x300 -background white -alpha remove "$f"[0] "${f%.pdf}.png"; done

Parameters

• -thumbnail: optimizes png creation for speed and strips metadata
• x300: Sets the thumbnail height, maintaining aspect ratio
• -background white: Sets the background of the thumbnail to white
• -alpha remove: Removes the alpha channel from the thumbnail output
• input_file.pdf: the PDF file to use as input
• [0]: The page number of the input file to use for the thumbnail

Source: Duncan Lock