PDF to Roll20?

Hello. Is there any way to take images from PDFs to make use of them in Roll20? I plan to run a game using a series of adventure modules that I own in PDF form and it would be nice if I could make use of the maps and handouts in them, but I can't figure out how to make it happen. Copy / paste does nothing and trying to drag elements into Roll20 also doesn't do anything. I've also tried opening the adventure module in Word, which allows me to manipulate the images within Word, but still refuses to transfer them over. BTW, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to these kinds of things.  Currently, the only option I see is to draw the maps in manually and just doing without the handouts.

One way is to use the Windows Snipping Tool or just take a screen shot of the PDF page using ALT-PRINT SCREEN. Then you can paste the image in windows paint and save it as a png or jpg. Then it will import in fine. The resolution might be a little dodgy but it is better than nothing.

Here is what I did to rip pictures from a PDF. I used a tool called LibreOffice, which allows you to edit PDF files, if you don't have the full version of Adobe Acrobat. This gives you the ability to pull maps from the PDF and removed all of the labels that would spoil the immersion for players. To grab the individual picture in full resolution you can use a PDF splitting tool to get yourself a PDF of the single page from the full PDF file. A quick google search like "Splitting a page from a PDF" will tell you how. From there you take the page into LibreOffice to grab the image without the text overlays from the PDF. Then you just save the page as an image with LibreOffice, I did this on accident so you might have a bit of trial/error to get it. Im sure there is a help entry or something on LibreOffice but I dont know for sure. It split up all the elements of the page and it looked a bit derpy on my screen but I right clicked it and pressed "View as image" or something like that. From there you open it with your favorite image editor and crop the part of the page you want and then save it. Then find the file in your file browser and click and drag it onto Roll20. Bam, PDF to Roll20 in a bunch of steps which I am sure someone else could do easier! Haha, this is how I pulled maps from Legacy of Fire into Roll20 to use as player maps. Hope I could help you, and good luck! Also dont worry about libre office, I think its pretty legit. I tried a few others but this was the only one that actually allowed me to pull the background image without the text elements. Godspeed, good sir.

Thanks, I'll have to give this a try. This Windows Snipping Tool isn't something I've heard of before, but sounds like it would be best for handouts since those are already how the players are supposed to see it. As for swiping a clean map image, I'm starting to get the impression that everything that seems like it should be simple is going to turn into a new project all its own. Oh well.

Advanced image editors will also let you extract images from PDFs. For instance, I do this with the  GIMP , a free Photoshop-replacement. I just open the PDF as an image, specify which pages I want to open, and hey, presto! I have an image I can save as a .jpg or .png or .gif, or I can even edit it first.

You can also usually just click on the picture, you'll see it highlight, then copy and paste it into an image program. then just save it. I did the above until i figured that out :) The one thing you'll discover is older pdfs have all the GM-only text built right in. Newer modules don't have it, but also don't have any sort of labeling at all (so i put the room #s on the GM layer, or in a small screenshot in a handout for myself) the nicer ones have no grid lines either. Some later Paizo ones are like that.

There is a program called xpdf from Foo Labs that can extract all of the images from a PDF and store them in a folder.  I have used it many time and it works pretty well.

I have used this site to convert PDFs to pgn and jpeg and it works really well. <a href="https://cloudconvert.com/pdf-to-png" rel="nofollow">https://cloudconvert.com/pdf-to-png</a>

As this topic has strayed from "How to load a pdf image into roll20" to "How to pull image from a pdf", It is on the verge of getting classified as off-topic. To pull it back to roll20 specific. If your image is a whole page image in the pdf, you can open your handout in edit mode and chose your pdf. It will ask you what page you wish to upload, if it is a multipage, and you can just choose that page (page might be different than the displayed page number) which should upload it to your handout then you can save it. It will also be loaded in your art library as a jpg so you can use it for a map also without having to reupload it. If it is a partial page image then you would need to get a 3rd party program and import, edit it, save it as a jpeg, then you can upload it normally. I believe that covers the original question.

Ah, okay. Then making it as a handout makes things much easier in most cases. Having players see the numbers on the maps isn't really a game breaker if they can't see the key for it, so it's all good. Edit: Or not. For some PDFs, it works just fine like Pat S. said. On others, I try to do it just the same way, but nothing happens except that the "Drop or select a file" text and button inside the dash line box moves a bit.

Timon F. said: Edit: Or not. For some PDFs, it works just fine like Pat S. said. On others, I try to do it just the same way, but nothing happens except that the "Drop or select a file" text and button inside the dash line box moves a bit. I have encountered that and that happens usually with a pdf that has some type of security enabled on it or it is a very large pdf file. The only work around is the opening of the pdf with a 3rd party software (like gimp) and exporting your page in a jpg (optimal choice) or png (good for tokens) format then uploading it. As that is actually outside the scope of roll20, you will have to ask the how to, if you do not know, at another forum.