New: Convert PDFs to Images via REST API — PNG, JPEG, Any Page

#pdf #api #devtools #javascript

Your users upload PDFs. They want to preview page 1 before downloading the full file.

Most solutions involve installing Poppler, Ghostscript, or some native binary on your server. That works until it does not: CI pipelines break, Alpine Linux builds fail, memory spikes kill your serverless function.

There is a cleaner path.

Forgelab PDF API now converts PDFs to images

Send a PDF, get back PNG or JPEG images — one per page, or just the pages you need.

Quick start

# Convert the first page to PNG
curl -X POST https://www.forgelab.africa/api/pdf/to-images \
  -H "X-API-Key: your_key" \
  -F "file=@document.pdf" \
  -F "page=1" \
  --output page1.png

Node.js example

import FormData from 'form-data';
import fs from 'fs';
import fetch from 'node-fetch';

const form = new FormData();
form.append('file', fs.createReadStream('document.pdf'));
form.append('page', '1');
form.append('format', 'png');

const res = await fetch('https://www.forgelab.africa/api/pdf/to-images', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'X-API-Key': process.env.FORGELAB_API_KEY,
    ...form.getHeaders(),
  },
  body: form,
});

const buffer = await res.arrayBuffer();
fs.writeFileSync('page1.png', Buffer.from(buffer));

Python example

import requests

with open('document.pdf', 'rb') as f:
    res = requests.post(
        'https://www.forgelab.africa/api/pdf/to-images',
        headers={'X-API-Key': 'your_key'},
        files={'file': f},
        data={'page': '1', 'format': 'jpeg'},
    )

with open('page1.jpg', 'wb') as out:
    out.write(res.content)

What this solves

Typical use cases:

Document preview — show page 1 as a thumbnail before users download the full file
Viewer apps — render pages on demand instead of loading the entire PDF in the browser
Thumbnail generation — auto-generate cover images for uploaded documents
E-signature flows — render pages as images for annotation layers

No binary dependencies on your server

The entire conversion runs server-side at Forgelab. Your app stays lean:

No Poppler
No Ghostscript
No ImageMagick
No temp file management
No memory spikes from in-process rendering

Works from any language that can make an HTTP request.

Pricing

Tier	Price	Calls/month
Free	$0	5 calls
Starter	$5/month	100 calls
Pro	$15/month	1,000 calls
Business	$30/month	10,000 calls

No credit card required for the free tier.

Get your API key at forgelab.africa — the PDF API also handles merge, split, compress, and convert, all on the same key.

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