Convert PDF to images to PDF
Imagemagick rasterizes everything. You could simply do:
convert -density 200 input.pdf output.pdf
Of course the recipient might decide to run an OCR program on your file. The density
parameter sets the resolution expressed as PPI.
PDF
to Image
The poppler-utils
packages includes the pdftoppm
utility, capable of converting PDF
files to either ppm
, png
or jpeg
format:
pdftoppm -png file.pdf prefix
This will make files name prefix-X.extension
where X
is the page number (each file outputted will be one page of the PDF
converted) and where extension
is whatever output type you choose.
By default the resolution is 150dpi. You can increase the resolution (for higher quality output) by using this command:
pdftoppm -rx 300 -ry 300 -extension file.pdf prefix
And to print only one page, do:
pdftoppm -f N -singlefile -extension file.pdf prefix
where N
is the page number, starting with 1.
This method is a lot faster and less clunky than using the imagemagick
package as mentioned in other posts. Although you do have to use it to convert back.
Image to PDF
This requires the installation of the imagemagick
package. To do this, do:
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
The imagemagick
package has a utility called convert
which will do just as it is named; convert. To make use of it in the way that you want, run it like so:
convert file.extension file.pdf
This will make a PDF
of only that single page, though. To combine all outputs of the previous command for converting to images, use this command:
convert *.extension file.pdf
This will grab all files in the directory that you are in with the extension
extension and convert them into a PDF
file named file.pdf
.
Note
I chose to format my answer in the way of two separate commands as to give the OP flexibility and understanding of the task that they are trying to complete, instead of one command linking the two. Of course, if that solution is better for them, then I encourage them to upvote/mark as answered that particular answer.
I always use pdftoppm to convert pdf to png images. simply execute the following command
pdftoppm -f [startpage] -l [end page] -r [resolution (use 300 or 600) -png <pdf file location> [Prefix for your image files]
and then execute
convert prefix-[number].png file.pdf
but there are programs that convert these images back into text. making your pdf uncopyable is very hard. You could add an encryption protection to prevent copying and printing which will make is (slightly) more difficult to copy and print your pdf file