Convert PDF to Image with Dragonfly and Rails

With other uploaders in rails, it's not super straightforward to convert a PDF to an image. But, by using Dragonfly's ImageMagick plugin, it's real simple.

Make sure you're using the ImageMagick plugin.

config/initializers/dragonfly.rb

Dragonfly.app.configure do
  plugin :imagemagick
end

And you'll want GhostScript installed on your machine.

The markup for it, though is simple. If you want a small, 200x200 thumbnail of a pdf, it's as simple as the following.

<%= image.image.thumb('200x200#', :format => 'png', :frame => 0).url %>

Note: This assumes you have an image object that has an uploader mounted to an image accessor. You'll want to update to your application.

References:

• Converting PDFs to PNGs with Dragonfly