PDF to JPG or PNG: which format to pick, with real sizes

Both converters run on your device with the same settings: Resolution (72, 150, 300 or 600 dpi), Pages, and either Quality for JPG or Background for PNG. Nothing is uploaded.

The 1-line rule

Photos and scans go JPG. Text, line art, logos and anything transparent go PNG.

Everything below is the why, with numbers measured on 11 October 2026 from our test PDFs, all A4 except the scan.

The same pages, both ways

5 test pages, each converted at 150 dpi with the default settings (JPG quality 85, PNG with a white background):

Page	Pixels	JPG	PNG	Pick
Invoice: 3 lines of text, mostly white	1240 x 1754	78 KB	43 KB	PNG: smaller and lossless
Chart page: bars, axis labels, a text block	1240 x 1754	237 KB	208 KB	PNG: smaller, crisp labels
Lease: 44 lines of 10 pt text, a red stamp	1240 x 1754	403 KB	430 KB	PNG: about the same size, no compression marks
Report: a large photo and 18 lines of text	1240 x 1754	285 KB	658 KB	JPG: under half the size
Scan: 148 x 105 mm, 200 dpi grey	874 x 619	31 KB	54 KB	JPG, or extract the scan itself

The pattern holds at every resolution. At 300 dpi the invoice is 283 KB as JPG and 94 KB as PNG; the report page is 788 KB as JPG and 1.9 MB as PNG.

Why PNG wins on text: PNG compresses runs of identical pixels, and a document page is mostly white paper and solid black letters. JPG cannot exploit that as well, and it spends bytes on the grey ringing it adds around every edge. Why JPG wins on photos: a photo has no 2 neighbouring pixels alike, which defeats PNG, while JPG was built for exactly that.

At print resolution the gap grows

The same pages at 300 dpi, where both formats carry 4 times the pixels:

Page	JPG (quality 85)	PNG	Difference
Invoice	283 KB	94 KB	PNG is a third of the JPG
Chart page	677 KB	465 KB	PNG about 30 % smaller
Lease text	1.1 MB	959 KB	PNG about 13 % smaller
Report with a photo	788 KB	1.9 MB	JPG under half the PNG

So for a text page going to a printer, PNG is both the sharper and the lighter choice. Raising JPG quality to 95 to clean up its edges makes it larger still: our lease page at 150 dpi goes from 403 KB at quality 85 to 596 KB at 95.

Sharpness: what JPG does to edges

At the same DPI, a JPG and a PNG have exactly the same pixel size. The difference is what happens inside those pixels. JPG simplifies the picture in 8 x 8 blocks; on hard edges that leaves faint grey speckles around letters and lines. At quality 85 you see them only when you zoom in; they become obvious when the image is enlarged on a slide, printed, or saved as JPG a second time.

PNG stores the pixels exactly, so a letter is as sharp as the DPI allows and stays that way however often you save. That is why PNG is the format for documentation, slides that show a page, and anything that will be edited later. PDF to JPG without losing quality shows how the JPG quality setting moves the size.

Transparency: only PNG has it

A JPG always has a solid background. getPDF draws every JPG on white paper, so a page or crop that has no background of its own comes out on white.

PNG can leave the background clear. In PDF to PNG, switch Background from white to transparent: whatever the page does not paint stays see-through. On our lease page at 300 dpi that also makes the file smaller, 695 KB instead of 959 KB, because empty pixels compress well.

Who needs this: anyone placing a stamp, a signature, a logo or a page’s content over a coloured slide or a web page without a white box around it. The steps, including the scanned case where the paper is part of the picture, are in a transparent PNG from a PDF.

PDF to JPGEvery page or selected, DPI, zip. Free, runs on your device.Open

Where each one lands well

• Email and chat: JPG for photo pages and scans, since every mail client and messenger shows it and the files stay small. PNG for a page of text; it is often the smaller file anyway.
• Websites and shop listings: JPG for cover images with photos, PNG for text-heavy covers and logos.
• Slides and Word documents: PNG at 150 dpi for pages and charts on screen, 300 dpi if the page fills the slide or will be printed. See a PDF page in PowerPoint or Word.
• Print: PNG at 300 dpi for text pages; JPG at 300 dpi and quality 85 or higher for photo pages.
• Archiving: neither. Keep the PDF.

The honest part

Neither format keeps what makes a PDF a document. The text in a JPG or PNG cannot be selected, searched or read by a screen reader; links stop working; and vector drawings are frozen at the DPI you chose, so zooming in past it shows pixels. A PDF to SVG converter, which would keep vector art sharp at any zoom, is planned for getPDF but not available yet. Until then, render at 300 dpi and keep the PDF as the master.

There is also no single right answer for a mixed page, a photo with a lot of text around it. Convert it both ways and keep the smaller one that reads well; each run takes a second or two, and nothing leaves your device. The pillar, PDF to images, covers the other routes, including extracting the original photos instead of rendering the page.