PDF thumbnails you can still read when they’re small.
The free plugin makes the thumbnail. Pro adds cropping, a page choice per PDF, detection of replaced files with a screen for replacing them, and a queue that keeps going after you close the tab. On a server where ImageMagick is not allowed to read PDFs, Pro can call Ghostscript directly — if the server meets two conditions. One-time purchase, from $19 (launch price).
14-day money-back guarantee — no questions asked | GPL v2+
- Changes nothing by default
- Preview before applying
- One-time, no subscription
- Tested on a real shared host
“Take the top of the page” — a square cut from the top
P.01why pro
Three things that go wrong with PDF thumbnails.
The free plugin reliably turns page one of a PDF into an image. Pro takes on what comes up once you actually run a site with them.
CASE 01 — THE SERVER
This server cannot render PDFs
No thumbnail at all
Plenty of hosts ship an ImageMagick security policy that forbids reading PDFs. The free plugin reports that accurately, but it cannot draw what the server will not let it read.
CASE 02 — SHRINKING
A portrait page becomes 150×150
In a list, you can’t tell which PDF is which
WordPress cuts its small thumbnail as a square from the middle of the image. On a portrait A4 page, the top — where the title is — is what gets cut away.
CASE 03 — REPLACING
New PDF, old cover
The old thumbnail quietly stays
Update a PDF over FTP or with a replace plugin and the thumbnail is not remade. The previous version’s cover keeps showing until someone notices.
PRO — ONE FIX FOR EACH
Render, crop, notice, remake
Nothing changes until you choose it
Pro draws with Ghostscript when the server allows it, crops a square from the top, marks replaced PDFs, and remakes thumbnails through a queue. Direct rendering, cropping and automatic remaking are off by default; detecting and marking replaced PDFs is always on.
Fixing CASE 01 (direct rendering) depends on the server. Read the requirements first — on a server that does not meet them, Pro cannot render either.
P.02free + pro
Free makes them. Pro tidies them up.
The free plugin makes PDF thumbnails from day one. Pro takes nothing away from it — it builds on top.
Free, and staying free.
- Thumbnail on upload, set as the featured image
- Colour-managed conversion of CMYK and PDF/X
- Which page to use, site-wide; bulk generation
- Tells you why when it cannot render (Status tab, Site Health)
The parts that bite once you’re live.
- Cropping (take the top, remove margins) with a preview
- A page choice and a crop override per PDF
- Replaced-file detection, and a replace screen you can undo
- A queue that survives closing the tab; direct Ghostscript rendering (conditional)
P.03pro features
What Pro does.
Every number here was measured on a real shared host (Xserver).
01 — CROP
Crops that stay readable
“Take the top of the page” cuts a square from the top, so the title survives WordPress’s 150×150 crop. “Remove the margins” trims the blank border. Compare both on your own PDF in the settings screen before applying anything.
Defaults checked against 10 real PDFs02 — PAGE
A page per PDF
For the PDFs whose cover isn’t page one, choose a different page. The crop can be overridden per PDF too — “don’t crop this drawing” is one setting.
The site-wide page stays in the free plugin03 — DETECT
Notices a replaced PDF
When a PDF’s file changes, the Media Library shows a “PDF replaced” badge. Replace plugins and FTP overwrites are both caught. Whether to remake the thumbnail automatically is your choice (off by default).
Tested alongside Enable Media Replace04 — REPLACE
A screen for replacing a PDF
Replace the file from the PDF’s own edit screen. The attachment ID and URL stay the same, old preview images are removed rather than piling up, and the previous file is kept so you can put it back.
Five replacements, zero leftover images05 — QUEUE
A queue that keeps going
Queue the whole library and close the browser. Failures are retried; anything given up on stays in the list with the reason.
500 jobs, unattended, 0 failures06 — GUARD
Refuses pages too big to draw
Rendering an A0 page at high resolution can use up the memory and take the process down with it. Pro estimates the size before drawing and refuses pages over the limit, saying why.
A0 at 600 dpi refused in 0.004 s (was 68.5 s)07 — RENDER (CONDITIONAL)
Renders where the server can’t
Only when the free plugin’s route fails, Pro calls Ghostscript directly and hands the result back to the free plugin to finish. It also works around Ghostscript 9.27 returning pages with transparency as blank white. The server must allow starting programs, and must have Ghostscript installed.
blank 11,018 bytes → drawn 624,109 bytes08 — SAFE
Changes nothing by default
Activating it does not change how your library looks. Cropping, automatic remaking and direct rendering only act once you turn them on. Changing a setting leaves existing images alone until they are regenerated.
Without a licence, the images are the free plugin’s09 — UPDATE
Updates in your dashboard
Delivered to WordPress’s own update screen. The ZIP is verified against its SHA-256 before it is installed, and credentials never go in a URL. A Japanese translation is included.
“View details” and “Check for updates”
Compare crops on your own PDF first
Waiting, running and done, in one list — even with the tab closed
Replace without changing the URL — and undo
P.04before you buy
Rendering where the server can’t has conditions.
Writing this in small print gets it bought for servers where it will not work. You can check both before you buy.
OKServers where Pro can render
- PHP can start programs (
disable_functionsleaves eitherexecorproc_open) - Ghostscript (
gs) is installed - The PHP Imagick extension is available (used to finish the image)
NOServers where Pro cannot render either
- Starting programs is disabled
- Ghostscript is not installed (installing it is the host’s job)
- There is no Imagick extension at all
How to check: with Pro installed, open Settings → PDF Image Creator Pro. It says either “Ghostscript can be called directly on this server” or why it can’t. If your server does not qualify, you get a full refund within 14 days.
Cropping, per-PDF pages, replaced-file detection, the replace screen and the queue do not depend on these conditions — they work anywhere the free plugin can make thumbnails.
P.05what it notices
Replacements it notices, and one it can’t.
The last row first: uploading a new PDF and deleting the old one makes a different file. Nothing links the two, so Pro cannot know.
| How the PDF was replaced | Does Pro notice? |
|---|---|
| A replace plugin, keeping the file name | ✓ |
| A replace plugin, with a new file name | ✓ |
| Overwritten over FTP / SFTP | ✓ (on the daily pass) |
| A new PDF uploaded and the old one deleted | — It can’t |
| Pro’s “Replace this PDF” | No need — the thumbnail is remade on the spot |
P.06free vs pro
Free and Pro, side by side
Pro is an add-on to the free plugin. The free plugin behaves the same whether Pro is installed or not.
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Thumbnail on upload, set as featured image | ✓ | ✓ |
| Colour management for CMYK / PDF/X; retry for blank pages | ✓ | ✓ |
| JPEG / PNG / WebP, resolution, maximum size, background | ✓ | ✓ |
| Which page to use, site-wide | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bulk generation for existing PDFs (with the screen open) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Explains why it can’t render; Site Health; shortcodes | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cropping (take the top, remove margins) with a preview | — | ✓ |
| Page choice and crop override per PDF | — | ✓ |
| A queue that survives closing the tab (retries, failure reasons) | — | ✓ |
| Replaced-file detection with a Media Library badge | — | ✓ |
| Replace screen (same URL, one generation kept, undo) | — | ✓ |
| Size estimate before rendering (refuses oversized pages) | — | ✓ |
| Direct Ghostscript rendering (server conditions apply) | — | ✓ |
P.07pricing
Launch price. Buy once.
Not a subscription. One purchase gets you updates with no time limit, and a year of support.
Free
Start by making thumbnails for free
$0
Free forever · WordPress.org
- Generation on upload, featured image
- CMYK / PDF/X colour management
- Site-wide page, bulk generation
- Explains why it can’t render
Pro · 1 site
For your own site or blog
$29
$19
One-time · updates with no time limit · 1 year of support
Launch price — until 31 March 2027
- Everything in Free, plus
- Cropping, a page per PDF
- Replaced-file detection, replace screen
- Queue, direct rendering (conditional)
Pro · 5 sites
For agencies and freelancers
$59
$39
One-time · updates with no time limit · 1 year of support
Launch price — until 31 March 2027
- Everything in 1 site
- Use on up to 5 sites
- For your clients’ sites
- $7.80 per site at launch price
After purchase your licence key arrives by email. Enter it on the download page to get the ZIP.
The launch price applies to orders until 31 March 2027. After that: 1 site $29 / 5 sites $59.
Before you buy
- The free “Rapls PDF Image Creator” (1.4.39 or later) must be installed and active. Pro is its add-on and does nothing on its own
- PHP 7.4+, WordPress 5.8+, and the PHP Imagick extension
- Buying for direct rendering? Read the requirements first
- The crop defaults were checked against digitally produced PDFs. For scanned paper, check the preview before applying them
P.08compatibility
Where it was tested
On a real shared host: an unattended 500-job queue, replaced-file detection, the replace screen, and capability checks with non-admin users.
P.09faq
Frequently asked questions
The free plugin’s Status tab says this server cannot render PDFs. Will Pro?
It depends on the server. If PHP can start programs (either exec or proc_open is enough) and Ghostscript is installed, Pro can call Ghostscript directly. If either is missing, Pro cannot render either. Pro’s settings screen tells you which applies to your server. If it does not qualify, you get a full refund within 14 days.
Will installing Pro change my existing thumbnails?
No. Cropping, automatic remaking and direct rendering are all off by default. Changing a setting leaves existing thumbnails alone until they are regenerated, and the queue only remakes what you tell it to.
Won’t cropping cut off something important?
Three things guard against that: you compare the crop on your own PDF before applying it; you can turn cropping off for individual PDFs (drawings, for instance); and “take the top” leaves a landscape page uncropped at 1:1 or 4:3, because the top already survives (at 16:9 it crops a landscape page too). A near-blank page, or a crop that would leave almost nothing, is caught by a safety valve and gets an uncropped thumbnail instead.
Can I remake a lot of thumbnails? Do I have to keep the tab open?
Queue them and close the tab. An unattended run of 500 jobs was taken to completion on a shared host. WP-Cron runs on visits, so on a quiet site have the server’s cron call wp-cron.php every five minutes (every minute is discouraged on shared hosting).
What happens to the thumbnail when I replace a PDF?
When the file changes through a replace plugin or FTP, Pro notices and shows a “PDF replaced” badge in the Media Library; remaking the thumbnail is up to you. Pro’s own “Replace this PDF” keeps the URL, remakes the thumbnail on the spot and lets you put the previous file back. Uploading a new PDF and deleting the old one creates a different file, which Pro cannot connect.
Does it work with Enable Media Replace?
Yes. With Enable Media Replace 4.2.2, replacements that keep the file name and ones that rename it were both tested — Pro noticed each immediately and remade the thumbnail correctly. The two also sit in different places: Enable Media Replace in the list, Pro on the PDF’s edit screen.
Is it a subscription? Does it stop after a year?
It’s a one-time purchase. Updates have no time limit and keep coming after the first year. Email support from a person (info@raplsworks.com) is included for a year from purchase; the add-on and its updates carry on after that.
Does a staging copy count as a site? What if I lose my key?
Yes. Each site address the licence is activated on uses one slot, whether it is live, staging or localhost. To move a licence, deactivate it on the old site and activate it on the new one. If the old site cannot be opened, write to info@raplsworks.com (this is done at any time, even after the first year): the licence is issued again with a new key. If you lose your key, the same key is sent to you again.
What if the licence server goes down?
Nothing happens to your site. An activated licence stays valid for 14 days without reaching the server. And when there is no valid licence, none of Pro’s features run and thumbnails are made exactly as the free plugin makes them (the admin screens still show the licence field and a note that it is not active).
Can I get a refund?
Within 14 days of purchase, for any reason. See the refund policy.
Thumbnails that tell you
which PDF you’re looking at.
One-time purchase: updates with no time limit, a year of support. Make thumbnails with the free plugin first, then add Pro where you want them tidy. The launch price runs until 31 March 2027.
14-day money-back guarantee — no questions asked