Rasterize Pages
Renders a page of a PDF as an image, so it can be placed in an image slot, shown on screen, or handled as a picture rather than as a document.
Overview
Sometimes a page needs to stop being a page and start being a picture. A surveyor sends a plat as a one-page PDF, and the appraisal form has an image slot waiting for it — slots take images, not documents. A lender wants one specific page of a disclosure reproduced inside a report rather than appended at the back. A permit application asks for a photograph of a document that only exists as a PDF.
Rasterizing is how that happens. The page is drawn at the same scale horizontally and vertically, so nothing comes out stretched, and the result is a standard image file. Where a whole document is rendered, every page comes back as its own image, in page order.
What It Does
| Capability | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Page rendered as an image | The finished visual appearance of a page becomes a standard image file |
| Nothing is stretched | The page is drawn at the same scale horizontally and vertically |
| Whole documents, page by page | Every page comes back as its own image, in page order |
| Ready for placement | A rendered page goes through the same normalizing and placement step a photograph does |
| Nothing interactive survives | A rendered page has no fields, links or annotations left to click |
When This Runs
Nothing chooses this. A page is rendered wherever the next step needs a picture instead of a document, and those places are fixed:
- A PDF is assigned to an image slot. Photo addenda, exhibit boxes and sketch panels take images. When the content arrives as a PDF — a plat, a site plan, a certificate — it is rendered on the way in, then placed in the slot.
- A source document is being read. Every page of a source PDF is rendered before its contents are read.
- A form is being prepared for display. An uploaded form is rendered to one image per page so its pages can be shown on screen.
- A completed fill is being shown back. The filled document is rendered to one image per page alongside the PDF itself.
Rasterizing costs you the text, so it is not the default route into a package. A page that only has to appear in the finished document is merged in as pages instead — it is never rendered, so its text stays where it is.
Inputs and Outputs
Takes: a PDF, and either one page of it or the whole document.
Returns: an image for each page rendered, in page order.
Resolution is never a per-document or per-request choice. Many of the places a page gets rendered — reading source documents among them — follow a workspace-level resolution setting. The rest use a resolution written into the code for that particular job.
Example
An appraisal report needs a plat map on its exhibit panel. The surveyor sent a single-page PDF — clean, vector, letter-size, and unusable as-is, because the panel is an image slot and slots take images.
The page is rendered, then fitted inside the panel. The image keeps its own proportions rather than the panel's, so a portrait plat in a landscape panel is sized down to fit instead of being distorted.
The engagement letter in the same package is not rendered. It is not going into an image slot — it is merged in as pages, and its text stays selectable in the delivered file.
Limits
- Rasterizing is one-way. Text becomes pixels. It is no longer selectable, searchable or extractable, and nothing in the product reads it back out of the image.
- Form fields, links and annotations do not survive. A rendered page is a picture of a page. Anything interactive on it is gone.
- File size usually grows. A page of pixels carries more data than the same page described as text and line work.
- It does not fix a bad source. A page that was blurry, cut off or missing content before rendering is equally blurry, cut off and incomplete afterwards.
- Accessibility is lost. Screen readers get nothing from a rendered page, which matters for deliverables with accessibility requirements.
FAQ
How do I turn a PDF page into an image?
The page is drawn as a standard image file, at the same scale horizontally and vertically, so nothing is stretched. Where a whole document is rendered, every page comes back as its own image, in page order.
Will the text still be searchable after rasterizing?
No. This is the main cost of the operation. A rendered page contains pixels, not characters, so the text cannot be selected, searched or copied, and nothing in the product reads it back out. Anything that still needs its text should not be rasterized.
What resolution should a rasterized page use?
It is not something chosen per document or per request. Many of the places a page gets rendered — reading source documents among them — follow a workspace-level resolution setting; the rest use a resolution written into the code for that job.
Does rasterizing make the PDF smaller or larger?
Usually larger. A page of pixels carries more data than the same page described as text and line work. It is a normalization step, not a compression step.
Why would a page be rasterized instead of just merged?
Because the destination is an image slot rather than a place in the page sequence. When a page simply has to appear in the finished document, it is merged in — which keeps the text where it is.
Can it render just part of a page?
Yes — a region of a page can be drawn instead of the whole sheet. The region is fixed by the step doing the rendering, not chosen per document.