Turn PDF files into TIFF
Turn every page of your PDF into a TIFF picture you can use anywhere. TIFF is the usual choice for print production, where the press needs exact colours. Worth knowing: a TIFF will not open in a browser tab, so it is a file for software rather than for the web. Your file never leaves your computer.
Need the other direction? Convert TIFF to PDF
How to convert PDF to TIFF
- 1 Drop your PDF .pdf file onto the page, or click to browse for it.
- 2 Choose how sharp the pictures should be and which pages you want.
- 3 Convert. The work happens on your own machine, so how long it takes depends on your computer and the file.
- 4 Download the TIFF, or add more files and do the whole set in one go.
Why convert PDF to TIFF
- Somewhere that only accepts pictures: a slide, a listing, a social post or a preview thumbnail.
- Keeps every detail and every shade, with proper colour management.
- Multiple pages in a single file, useful for scanned documents.
- Print production, where the press needs exact colours.
- PDF: editing an existing PDF is awkward because it stores drawing commands, not structure.
PDF compared with TIFF
How the two formats differ on the things that decide whether a conversion is worth making.
| Property | TIFF | |
|---|---|---|
| File extension | .tiff | |
| Transparency | No | Yes |
| Colour depth | RGB, CMYK, greyscale and spot colour with ICC profiles | Up to 32 bits per channel, RGB, CMYK, Lab and greyscale |
| Browser support | Every browser | No browser support |
| Introduced | 1993 | 1986 |
| Developed by | Adobe, now ISO 32000 | Aldus, now Adobe |
Quality and what changes
Text and vector artwork in a PDF are drawing instructions with no fixed resolution, so rasterising them fixes their sharpness at whatever resolution you pick. 150 dots per inch is comfortable on screen and 300 is the usual print figure, doubling each dimension and quadrupling the file size. Any photograph already embedded in the page cannot get sharper than it was, whatever resolution you render at.
- Browsers will not display a TIFF, so it downloads rather than opening in a tab.
- One TIFF limitation to keep in mind: no browser displays TIFF natively, so the web needs a conversion.
Questions about PDF to TIFF
Can I open a TIFF in a browser?
No. No mainstream browser renders TIFF natively, so it will download rather than display. That is fine when the file is heading into desktop software or an archive, and a problem if it is going on a web page.
Will the text still be selectable?
No. Rendering a page to TIFF turns text into pixels, so it can no longer be selected, searched or copied. Keep the PDF alongside the images if you need those.
Is my PDF file uploaded anywhere?
No. The whole thing runs inside the browser tab you already have open. Your PDF is read straight from your own disk, converted on your machine and handed back as a TIFF. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is stored and there is no account.
Is there a file size limit?
There is no server-side limit because no server sees the file. The real ceiling is your device memory, since the input and the output both have to fit in the tab. A few hundred megabytes is usually fine on a desktop machine and considerably less on a phone.
Can I convert several PDF files at once?
Yes. Add as many as you like and they are processed one after another, then offered as separate TIFF downloads or as a single ZIP. Speed depends on your own processor rather than on a queue.
Does the converter work offline?
Yes, after the page has loaded once. The engine is cached by the browser, so you can disconnect, reload and keep converting. That falls out of doing the work locally rather than being a separate mode you switch on.