How can I convert a PNG to a PDF, where the width of the PNG is fitted to a page size, and it is broken apart into pages?

Question

This seems like it ought to be obvious, but is anything but. I'm working in Windows.

Suppose I have a PNG that is say, 1,200 by 6,000 pixels. I would like to be able to convert it to a PDF, such that whatever width it is in pixels, within reason, it gets scaled to the desired width of the page, say 8.5" X 11". Excess length is cut arbitrary onto subsequent pages.

I would prefer not to have to split it up onto separate PDF files first, or to manually set the scale, since I would like to be able to do it for PNGs of differing widths. I would like the PDF to know it is supposed to consist of 8.5" X 11" pages when printed, with the PNG, of whatever width, scaled to letter size, and broken up into pages. I'm not particular if it involves using a GUI application, or a command line utility with a simple or involved script, but would prefer it to work offline. I would prefer it to keep its aspect ratio, and not require me to resize it manually, or to calculate the scale by hand, but be pretty much automatic. GIMP seems to get the idea, when I set Print Size, but still insists on scaling it to fit on one page. IrfanView too. It seems like k2pdfopt would do it, but at a minimum, it seems I would have to calculate the scale factor by hand.

You'd think some programmer would have thought somebody would want to print an image by fitting it to the width of letter sized paper, and carrying the excess over to additional papers. The problem seems to be nobody has thought to have a scale to page width option, while allowing excess height to be split to subsequent pages. Printing to a PDF printer device would be acceptable. I suspect somebody skilled in ImageMagick could write a fancy script to do it. I'm sure a GIMP or Krita macro would do it. I would hope it could be done with freeware. A command-line solution would be best, since it could do a bunch in batch mode. I'm sure a lot of people have had this problem.

I've found I can to it in M$ Paint, if I fiddle with the Scaling in Page Setup. It seems like it would be a common enough situation to want a simple one-step process.

Answer 1

I've since found a Chrome plugin that will do it for me. The Chrome plugin "Screen Capture and Recorder" by Screeny does a reasonably nice job of capturing the pixels of a webpage by clicking its button, and then choosing the "Whole Page" option. It creates a new tab with the captured image, and a toolbar. Click the download icon, and choose the "Save asPDF" (sic) button. It formats the page to the width of an 8.5" X 11", and splits overflow from the first page onto subsequent pages in the PDF.

To do it with an arbitrary graphic file, drag your file from Windows Explorer or analog, to the Chrome Omnibar. That will create a URL in the form of a file link. Then, just hit <Enter> in order to load the file. Then, follow the above directions.

In case you're wondering, it can be done entirely offline. Tweaking.com has a handy utility that gives you a right-click action which disables or enables internet access for the utility in Windows Firewall. It does not appear to "phone home."

I haven't tested the DPI of the PDF it generates, nor if it changes with the underlying image's DPI. I don't know if the resulting capture always has at least the same DPI as the original. It does seem to work for the use cases I currently have.

With such a basic, universally useful functionality, which, surrealy, seemingly has been otherwise overlooked, no wonder it reports to be the #1 screen capture plugin.