Genealogy Chat

Someone sent me some photos that had been saved in pdf format. I would like to change them to jpegs so I can access them with Irfanview (this program also allows thumbnails of the pictures; saves opening the wrong ones - but it won't even show pdfs) Looking for the beginners version of doing this. Margaret

Yvonne - I'm not sure if Adobe Acrobat (free version) allows you to convert to a jpeg format. However, there is a way around it as follows: Open the pdf and then select the Snapshot Tool which is a little icon that looks like a little camera with a dotted line around it near the top of the screen (probably just to the left of the magnifying glass). Now, using your mouse, click and drag a box around the image. A box should pop up saying you have copied the selected area to the clipboard. Next, open your imaging software, ie Picassa, Photo Editor etc. From the Edit menu at the top of the screen you should be able to choose Paste or Paste as New Image or something similar which will copy the image into a new document. You can now click on Save As from the File menu and choose jpeg from the drop down menu in the window that opens as well as give the image a suitable name. Hope this helps.

you need to flatten the image first before it'll save as a jpeg if you want to send them to me it'll take two seconds to do it with photoshop Zoe

Thanks for your answers. Errol, I'll give that a go...if it doesn't work, I'll maybe send them to Zoe (there are quite a few). Flatten them Zoe -- is that like zipping them?

Margaret no it's a process in photoshop that alters the data of a pdf to make it readable as a jpeg. Send them to me - I'm in work til midnight so even if I can't do them all straight away I'm sure I can get thru it in the next 4 hours Zoe

Incidentally if you cannot find the Snapshot Tool icon you will find it on the Tools menu and then Basic. Doing it that way you shouldn't need to flatten the image either but if you are using software that asks you to then click on yes.

Basically, flattening an image means that all the layers are merged as one single 'background'. (jpegs don't support layers)

Thanks Errol and Zoe - told you I needed beginners instructions. Zoe - will pm you. Margaret

My son solved this one for me by opening the pictures in paint then saving them as Jpegs.