How can GraphicsMagick be utilized to convert PDFs to images for creating thumbnails in PHP applications?

To convert PDFs to images for creating thumbnails in PHP applications, GraphicsMagick can be utilized. GraphicsMagick is a powerful command-line tool that can be used to convert PDFs to images. By using the PHP shell_exec function, we can call GraphicsMagick commands to convert PDF files to images, which can then be used to generate thumbnails.

$pdfFile = 'example.pdf';
$outputFile = 'thumbnail.jpg';

$command = "gm convert -density 300 $pdfFile -resize 200x200 $outputFile";
shell_exec($command);