# Install pdf2image with Homebrew

Convert PDFs to images. Version 0.53 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:pdf2image
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install pdf2image
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:pdf2image
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 0.53
- **Source summary:** Convert PDFs to images
- **Homepage:** <https://code.google.com/p/pdf2image/>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- pdf2image (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 0.53
## Project history and usage

PDF2Image is a command-line and library-style PDF conversion project for rendering PDF pages to image formats and exporting text data. The archived Google Code metadata describes it as based on XPDF 3.02 and requiring Ghostscript and FreeType.

### Project history

The original project was hosted on Google Code as pdf2image with Subversion source hosting. Google Code archive metadata records the project as having source, a GPL-2 license, and a later move to the FlexPaper GitHub repository.

The 0.53 source and Windows executable were published in January 2012 according to the official Google Code archive downloads metadata. That 0.53 line is the same major historical release packaged by Homebrew for the command-line formula.

### Adoption history

PDF2Image was tied to FlexPaper and FlowPaper-style document viewing workflows, where pre-rendering PDF pages to images or extracting text metadata was useful for web display pipelines. In package-manager culture it remains a small compatibility package for users who need this older Ghostscript/XPDF-based converter rather than the unrelated modern Python package with the same name.

### How it is used

The archived official description documents a pdf2image command accepting a PDF input and optional XML output, with flags for first and last page, JSON output, compression, zoom, image device, encoding, owner password, and user password.

Package users should treat this as the historical C/C++ PDF2Image tool, not the Python pdf2image wrapper around Poppler. Its runtime expectations center on Ghostscript and FreeType.

### Why package nerds care

The package is a naming trap: Homebrew's pdf2image formula tracks the old Google Code/FlexPaper tool, while most contemporary search results point to the Python project. Correct curation prevents users and automated tooling from mixing two unrelated packages with different languages, dependencies, licenses, and CLIs.

### Timeline

- 2011: PDF2Image 0.49 Windows and source downloads were published in the Google Code archive.
- 2012: PDF2Image 0.53 source and Windows executable downloads were published.
- 2015: Google Code archive metadata recorded the project as moved to https://github.com/flexpaper/pdf2image.

### Related projects

- The official archive says PDF2Image is based on XPDF and requires Ghostscript and FreeType. The GitHub repository identifies FlowPaper as the current maintainer/sponsor.

### Sources

- <https://code.google.com/archive/p/pdf2image/>
- <https://github.com/flexpaper/pdf2image>
- <https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive/v2/code.google.com/pdf2image/downloads-page-1.json>
- <https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive/v2/code.google.com/pdf2image/project.json>


## Security Notes

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal.

- **Geiger risk:** blue / medium
- broad file, network, media, or database tool signal


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/pdf2image.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/pdf2image.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- cross-ecosystem install command graph