PDF how to take preview snapshot?

Question

When a user uploads a PDF document or ms word document, I would like to take a snapshot of the first page and display it as an image, how do I do this?

Answer 1

Try this article: How To Convert PDF To Image Formats In .NET. It shows how to create snapshots of PDF pages using our product PDFOne .NET.

DISCLAIMER: I work for Gnostice.

Answer 2

Use the ImageMagick Application Wrapper, and
convert.exe 'file.pdf[0]' snapshot.jpg

Answer 3

For Word documents, you'll need a solution which can understand and render the snapshot. You could use TxTextControl or some Word printer driver, such us Easy PDF Creator.

Once you have the PDF file ready, you could use Super Pdf2Image Converter .NET. It's available for both 32 and 64 bit and is very cheap and effective.

You can take a look here: http://softwaresigloxxi.com/SuperPdf2ImageConverter.html

For instance, here's a sample code for converting:

// Instantiate the component
Pdf2ImageConverter p2i = new Pdf2ImageConverter(pdfPath);

// Get page count of a PDF file
int pages = p2i.GetPageCount();

// Get size of any page
int width, height;
p2i.GetPageSize(1, out width, out height);

// Convert any page of PDF to image file (preserving aspect ratio)
p2i.GetImage(outputImagePath, pageNumber, resolution, imageFormat);

// Or... convert any page of PDF to image (returns bitmap object)
Bitmap bm = p2i.GetImage(pageNumber, resolution, width, height, imageFormat);

(Disclaimer I worked on this component at Software Siglo XXI)