Create thumbnail image for PDF in Java

PDF Renderer is fine so long as you only use the subset of PDF files they use. With JPod and JPedal you are paying for an active and developed library not a dead project.

PDF Renderer is a LGPL licensed pure-java library that makes this as simple as (taken from their example page):

File file = new File("test.pdf");
RandomAccessFile raf = new RandomAccessFile(file, "r");
FileChannel channel = raf.getChannel();
ByteBuffer buf = channel.map(FileChannel.MapMode.READ_ONLY, 0, channel.size());
PDFFile pdffile = new PDFFile(buf);

// draw the first page to an image
PDFPage page = pdffile.getPage(0);

//get the width and height for the doc at the default zoom 
Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(0,0,
                (int)page.getBBox().getWidth(),
                (int)page.getBBox().getHeight());

//generate the image
Image img = page.getImage(
                rect.width, rect.height, //width & height
                rect, // clip rect
                null, // null for the ImageObserver
                true, // fill background with white
                true  // block until drawing is done
                );