How do I turn a PDF page into an image on my phone?

Last reviewed: October 29, 2026 · Markdown version

Two routes work on any phone, and they give different results. A screenshot is quick and captures exactly what is on the screen, at the screen's resolution. A proper export keeps the page's own detail and lets you pick the file type. On iPhone, Apple's Preview app does the export. On Android, the Google pages we read today document the screenshot and nothing more.

iPhone: export from Preview

Apple's Preview guide says "You can export a PDF or image as a HEIC, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PNG, or TIFF file." The steps:

Open the PDF in the Preview app.
Tap the Actions Menu button next to the filename, then tap Export.
Choose a format, such as JPEG or PNG.
Set the resolution. Apple lists this option as "available when exporting a PDF to an image format", entered in pixels per inch or per centimetre, and notes that "Higher values produce larger, more detailed images."
Tap Done, choose where to save it, rename it if you like, and tap Save.

(Export or compress PDFs and images in Preview on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 29 October 2026.) One gap: the page does not say which pages of a multi-page PDF end up in the image, or whether you get one file per page. If you only want page 4, the safest reading is to make a copy of the PDF first and trim it to that page. Preview's page tools cover that: show the thumbnails, "Touch and hold a thumbnail", then "Tap Delete Page" for each page you do not want (Add, delete, rotate, move, or crop PDF pages in Preview on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 29 October 2026). Do that on the copy, never the original.

The same guide adds a crop step: scroll to the page, "tap the Crop button", then "Drag the blue handles to select an area" (same page). Cropping before you export is how you get one table or one signature block as a picture rather than the whole sheet.

iPhone: the screenshot

Open the page, zoom so it fills the screen, and take a screenshot: "Quickly press and release the side button and the volume up button at the same time", or on iPhone SE "the Home button and the side button". Tap the thumbnail that appears to crop it with the handles before saving. Apple says "Screenshots are automatically saved to your photo library", under Collections, then Media Types, then Screenshots (Take a screenshot on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 29 October 2026). The Full Page option on that screen is described with Safari webpages as its example, not PDFs, so do not rely on it for a long document.

Android: the screenshot is the documented route

Google's Android steps: open the screen, then "Press the Power and Volume down buttons at the same time", or if that fails "press and hold the Power button for a few seconds. Then tap Screenshot." The picture goes to the Photos app under Collections, On this device, Screenshots. For a page taller than the screen, Android 12 and later offers "Capture more", with crop guidelines to choose how much to keep (Take a screenshot or record your screen on your Android device, Android Help, read 29 October 2026). Google's page says this works "on most screens that allow you to scroll", and does not say whether a PDF viewer is one of them.

We looked for a documented export in Google's own PDF viewer. The Files by Google article on PDFs lists sharing, starring, Open with, moving, copying, Find in file, printing and annotating, and no option to save a page as a picture (Open, manage & edit PDFs in Files by Google, Files by Google Help, read 29 October 2026). Other PDF apps on your phone may offer one; check the app's own menu rather than assuming.

Which to use

This part is our judgement. For sending a page to someone to look at, a cropped screenshot is enough and takes the least effort. For anything that will be printed, zoomed or read by another program, export instead, because a screenshot can never hold more detail than your screen shows. Whichever you choose, the result is a picture: its words cannot be selected or searched until something reads them again, which finding text in an image covers.