How can I create PDF previews for display in a Next.js and Sanity project?

Frontend and Backend Development
1

Using Next.js with Sanity for PDF uploads, how can I generate a thumbnail (first page) for quick view? I’m looking for solutions and a custom code snippet.

import pdfImageGen from 'pdf-thumb-extractor';

async function getThumbnail(filePath) {
  const previewImage = await pdfImageGen(filePath, { firstPage: true });
  return previewImage;
}

getThumbnail('local/path/document.pdf').then(img => console.log('Preview:', img));

{
  "docID": "xyz789",
  "docName": "Demo PDF",
  "fileDetails": { "resource": "samplePlaceholder" }
}
2

Using a custom server-side approach proved quite effective in determining the PDF thumbnail in a Next.js and Sanity setup. I integrated a library similar to pdf-thumb-extractor with custom modifications to better handle edge cases such as encrypted or malformed documents. This meant tweaking configurations and error handling to ensure consistent output across different PDFs. Emphasizing robust logging and fallback mechanisms helped improve reliability when deployed. Consistent testing with various PDF formats was key to certifying that the preview generation met production quality guidelines.