What does it mean to rasterize a PDF?
Rasterizing a PDF means converting its pages, or parts of them, from text and vector graphics into raster images made of pixels. The pages look the same, but the text becomes part of a picture: it can no longer be selected, searched or edited, and it gets blurry when you zoom in far enough.
Also called: Rasterize PDF, Rasterized PDF, Image-only PDF
Updated October 15, 2026 · By the PDFZyro team
Vector and raster
Most PDFs made from a word processor or a design program are vector files: text is stored as characters in a font, and lines and shapes as mathematical paths, so they stay sharp at any zoom and print crisply. A raster image, like a photo or a scan, is a grid of pixels with a fixed resolution. Rasterizing draws each page at a chosen resolution, measured in dots per inch (DPI), and keeps only the picture.
Why people rasterize PDFs
Rasterizing makes a page look the same everywhere, because there are no fonts, transparency or layers left for a reader or printer to interpret differently. It's used to fix files that print wrongly, to send a document whose text shouldn't be easy to copy or edit, and to prepare pages for systems that only accept images. Print workflows sometimes rasterize one complex element, such as a shadow effect, rather than the whole page.
What you lose
A rasterized page has no real text, so it can't be searched, copied, edited or read aloud by a screen reader until OCR adds a text layer again. Files usually get larger, especially at print resolution, and small text can look soft. Links, bookmarks, form fields and comments are lost too.
Rasterizing isn't a substitute for redaction: the visible text is still there for anyone to read, and OCR can turn it back into text. To take information out of a document, redact it and remove its hidden data. To fix form answers in place without losing the text, flattening is usually the better choice.
How to rasterize a PDF in PDFZyro
- Open PDF to images, choose the document, and pick TIFF with One multi-page TIFF, at 150 DPI for screens or 300 DPI for printing. Convert, and the file downloads.
- Open Images to PDF, add the TIFF file, choose Same as picture for the page size and no margin, and convert. Every page of the TIFF becomes a page of the new PDF.
- The image-only PDF is added to your library as a new document, and the original stays as it is. If you need searchable text again later, run OCR on it.
Tools and guides
- Guide: How to convert PDF to JPGHow to convert a PDF to JPG: save each page as a picture, choose JPG, PNG or TIFF and the right resolution, get just one page, and other ways to do it.
- PDF to JPGSave each page of a PDF as a JPG, PNG or TIFF picture.
- JPG to PDFTurn pictures into one PDF, or one PDF each.
Related terms
- Flattening a PDFMerging form fields and comments into the page so they can no longer be changed.
- RedactionPermanently removing sensitive text or images from a document before it is shared.
- OCR (optical character recognition)Software that reads the text in scans and photos so it can be searched and copied.
- Embedded fontsFonts stored inside a PDF so its text looks the same on every computer, phone and printer.