How to identify resolution of PDF

[Skylark]

I produce a community magazine and often get sent advertisements as PDFs. I use PDF-XChange Viewer to convert the PDFs into PNG files - a very useful tool. I would really like to know if there's any way of finding out what resolution the PDF files I have been sent actually are. I'm often dealing with clients such as builders, hairdressers, etc. who don't have a clue what the difference betwen high and low resolution is and say 'I just pressed the button'. Is this information hidden in the PDF file's properties somewhere? I've looked, but can't find anything. When I receive a file that is obviously low resolution, I want to be able to go back to advertiser and say, for example, "this has been created as a minimum quality or standard PDF, it needs to be saved for commercial press."

Thank you.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Skylark,

And welcome to our forums.
I am afraid that with the current version of our Viewer it is not possible to tell that, but you can export any images contained inside a PDF file using our PDF Tools, and then in a third party imaging software you can check the resolution of those images.

Some image manipulation tools would be coming in ver3 of our Viewer but for the time being all the officially available information for confirmed features you can see here:
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 36&t=10100

Best,
Stefan

[Skylark]

Thank you, Stefan.

I didn't realise I could export images from within a PDF; I have only converted a complete PDF or section of a PDF to an image using the File > Export > Export to Image option. That allows me to select the file type and resolution of the output image. How do I export images from a PDF in their original resolution?

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Skylark,

For that you will need our PDF Tools and the exported images will be in their original format and with the same number of pixels - please note that an image might be e.g. 300x600 px and be displayed twice in a file - once with dimensions 1x2 inches (giving it effectively a resolution of 300 DPI inside the PDF), and once as 2x4 inches image (150 dpi) - this is possible due to the PDF specification, so you will export the image in it's full number of pixels, but it is up to you to determine the resolution that was used inside a given PDF page.

Best,
Stefan

[Skylark]

Thanks, Stefan. I misunderstood you and thought you were referring to the Tools menu on the PDF-XChange Viewer menu. I'll have a look at the PDF Tools program.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

You are welcome Skylark,

Please let us know how it goes after you perform your tests!

Best,
Stefan