PDF Transform for Craft CMS 5

PDF Transform is a Craft CMS plugin that transforms a PDF stored in Assets, to an image. This can then be output via Twig in to a template.

A use case for this is to show the preview of a PDF before a user downloads that particular file.

Features

• Transform PDF's to images via Twig (The file needs to be an existing Asset element)
• PDF's are transformed to an image when PDF's are uploaded via Assets or Asset fields.
• Transformed PDF images are indexed and available in Assets like all other asset elements.
• Works with local asset volumes, Amazon S3 and Servd.

Install

• Install with Composer via composer require bymayo/pdf-transform from your project directory
• Enable / Install the plugin in the Craft Control Panel under Settings > Plugins
• Customise the plugin settings, especially the Image Volume option.

You can also install the plugin via the Plugin Store in the Craft Admin CP by searching for PDF Transform.

Requirements

• Craft CMS 5.x
• Imagick / Ghostscript
• MySQL (No PostgreSQL support)

Configuration

Setting	Default	Description
Page Number	1	Set with page should in the PDF should be converted to an image.
Image Volume	null	Choose where converted images should be stored.
Image Resolution	72	Set the resolution of the converted image.
Image Format	jpg	Set the file format of the converted image.
Image Quality	100	Set the image quality of the converted image.

Templating

To transform a PDF to an image use the following Twig tag:

{% set pdfToTransform = entry.pdfAsset.one() %}

{% set transformedPdf = craft.pdfTransform.render(pdfToTransform) %}

{{ transformedPdf.one().url }}

The transformed PDF (Now an image stored in Assets) can then be output using {{ transformedPdf.one().url }}. Or get any Asset property e.g. title, id, filename etc.

If the transformed image doesn't exist then the PDF will be transformed via the template. This may cause the template/page to become slow whilst the PDF is transformed.

Be aware that this also may output a large image, so we'd recommend running this through an image transform. See Dimensions.

Known Issues

Imagick / Ghostscript

The plugin runs PDFs through a PDF library called pdf-to-image. They have known issues with Imagick where transforms may fail if Ghost Script isn't accessible through Imagick (Very easily resolvable)

Read more about this issue - https://github.com/spatie/pdf-to-image#issues-regarding-ghostscript.

Dimensions

PDF Transform does the basic job of converting your PDF to a single image. It will never be it's role to set width and height dimensions (Other than Image Resolution).

I'd recommend running the PDF image through one of the following options/plugins and setting the dimensions that way (Some of these also handle caching the image as well)

• Image Transforms by Craft
• Imager X by aelvan
• Image Optimize by nystudio107

Support

If you have any issues (Surely not!) then I'll aim to reply to these as soon as possible. If it's a site-breaking-oh-no-what-has-happened moment, then hit me up on the Craft CMS Discord - @bymayo

Roadmap

• Optional variables (E.g. page, resolution etc)
• When PDF assets are updated, ensure old transformed image is removed.