How to Open PDF in Paint – Here is the Ultimate Guide You Should Follow

Last Updated on June 8, 2023 by Tina Clark


Opening PDF files with Paint offers many advantages, one of which is that you may annotate the PDF using various Paint components. Is it possible to open PDF with Paint? No. It is something that cannot be accomplished with the built-in applications provided by Microsoft for opening PDF files. MS Paint is only an image editor that is limited for opening PDF files. How do you use Paint to open and edit PDF files? Find the solution to this problem by just reading the whole article.

How to Open PDF in Paint

Part 1: Why Cannot Open PDF Directly in Paint

You can manipulate any type of image with Paint, however, the issue is that you cannot read PDF files in Paint due to the format's incompatibility. This factor is the main problem why you cannot open a PDF in MS Paint directly. The following image formats are supported by Paint:

  1. JPEG
  2. Windows Bitmap
  3. TIFF
  4. GIF
  5. PNG

What should you do to open PDF in Paint? Of course, you can simply convert PDF to the above file formats or choose a Paint plugin to view the PDF files directly. While a few additional formats are also compatible with Paint, the ones listed above are the only ones guaranteed to maintain the same level of quality and consistency.

How to Install a PDF Plugin for Paint

Step 1: To auto-install the plugin, you can download and install the PDF plugin for Paint and put the PdfFileTypePlugin folder as well as its contents in the Paint.NET$FileTypes directory.

Step 2: When you have installed the plugin, you can restart Paint.NET to open the PDF files. Moreover, it can also open Adobe Illustrator Artwork files saved with the PDF compatibility option.

Paint Plugin Install

Part 2: How to Convert PDF to Paint Compatible Formats

Even if you install plugins for Paint, it is difficult to open large PDFs in Paint. Since MS Paint supports limited file formats, you must convert your PDF file into a compatible file format. PDFElement is an all-in-one PDF editor and converter to convert PDFs into multiple file formats, including PNG, JPEG, and more. It has powerful optical character recognition (OCR) technology that enables you to convert image-based PDFs to text-based forms.

1. Convert PDF to Paint compatible JPEG, PNG, BMP, and more file formats.

2. Extract the images from PDF files or even convert the PDF into a picture.

3. Select the desired PDF convert, merge PDF, combine multiple files, etc.

4. Keep text, images, and graphics with original layout when converting.

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Step 1: Download and install PDFElement, you can launch the program on your computer. Just click the File menu and choose the Open button to import the PDF file you want to convert. It enables you to crop the desired part, add text files and images, extract files with the OCR algorithm, translate the files, and more.

Edit PDF Form PDFElement

Step 2: Go to the Convert menu and choose the different conversion options, including To Word, To Excel, To PPT, To Image, To Text, and more. To open the PDF in Paint, you can choose the To Image option and turn the PDF into a compatible format. It provides different photo formats and settings according to your requirements.

Convert PDF to Word

Step 3: Click the Settings button to choose the desired image quality, extract the PDF for each page separately, select the desired pages for converting PDF to image, and more. After that, you can click the OK button. After that, you can save the PDF to a Paint-compatible format on your computer accordingly.

Convert PDF to Image Settings Win Download Mac Download

Part 3: The Paint Alternative to Edit PDF Documents

Is there a Paint alternative to open and edit your PDF file on Windows and Mac? WidsMob PDFEdit is more than a PDF viewer but also enables you to edit the PDF files with multiple annotation tools. Moreover, you can save PDF documents to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more than 200 other file types to PDF directly. Moreover, it enables you to merge files, divide pages, trim the necessary portion, rearrange the page order, and more.

1. Open and edit PDF documents at a fast speed with the original quality.

2. Provide the editing features to trim, merge, edit, crop, rotate, and more.

3. Add multiple annotations and watermarks to PDFs with multiple settings.

4. Convert and save the PDF files to JPEG, PNG, and more for Paint.Net.

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Step 1: Once you have launched PDFElement, you can import the PDF into the program. After that, you can select the Edit button to further edit the file. It enables you to add text, add images, and add links to the PDF. When you need to fill in the PDF, you can double-click the area and choose the Edit button.

Edit Text of PDF

Step 2: Go to the Comment button, where you can add highlight, draw highlight area, draw on the PDF, clean pencil drawing, add an underline to text, add a text box with a borderline, or even a callout. Moreover, there are multiple elements you can add or use the redact to remove text files you do not want.

Add Comment to PDF

Step 3: Besides the above features, you can also find others, such as adding form and protection to the PDF files. Moreover, it also provides some advanced AI algorithms to read the text files in the PDF or even use the Cloud service to sync the file. It should be the best Paint alternative to edit and convert the PDF files.

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Conclusion

That concludes the discussion on how to open or view PDF files in MS Paint. Of course, you can simply install a plugin to open the PDF. But the speed and quality cannot be ensured. To save you time and effort, PDFElement is the best option for annotating a PDF without converting PDF to an image format or taking a screenshot.