Split a PDF
Pull out the pages you want, or drop the ones you do not. The file never leaves your computer.
No file yet.
Two jobs, one field
Splitting a PDF is nearly always one of two things: taking a section out to send on its own, or dropping pages you do not want anyone to see. Both are the same operation pointed in opposite directions, so the page numbers work identically and the mode decides whether the list means keep these or remove these.
Write the numbers however is natural. 3-7 is a range,
12 is one page, 20- means page 20 to
the end, and you can mix them: 1, 4-6, 9-. Ranges written
backwards are read as though they were the right way round, overlaps are harmless, and
anything past the last page is trimmed with a note rather than silently ignored.
Removing a page is not the same as hiding it
This genuinely removes the pages: the new file is rebuilt from the ones you kept, and the rest are not copied into it. That is worth stating because the usual alternatives do not do this. Drawing a black rectangle over text leaves the text underneath, where anyone can select it. Some editors mark a page hidden while leaving its content in the file.
For redacting part of a page, this tool cannot help you, and you should not trust an annotation to do it. For removing a whole page, this does exactly what it says.
Nothing is re-rendered
The pages you keep are copied across as they are. Text stays as text and remains searchable, images keep their original resolution, and vector graphics stay vector. Nothing is converted to a picture and nothing is compressed again, so the pages in the new file are indistinguishable from the pages in the old one.
A file made of 10 pages out of 100 will usually be far smaller, though not always exactly a tenth: fonts and other shared resources are carried over as needed, so a document with a large embedded typeface keeps a fixed cost whichever pages you take.
Page numbers mean the PDF's pages
Count from the first sheet of the file, starting at one. That is frequently not the number printed on the page: a report with a cover and a contents page often prints "1" on the third sheet. If a document has roman numerals at the front, they still count as pages here.
One file at a time, on purpose
Each run produces one PDF. Getting a folder of single-page files means running it once per page, which is fine for a handful and tedious for fifty. The alternative would be to build a zip archive, which is more machinery than the common cases need, and the common cases are pulling out a section and dropping a page.
Going the other way, several files into one, is the merge tool, which also runs entirely in your browser.
Common questions
- Is my file uploaded?
- No. The PDF is opened and rewritten in your browser, on your own device. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored. Watch the network tab in your browser developer tools while you use it and you will see no request go out.
- How do I write the page numbers?
- Single pages, ranges, or both, separated by commas: 3-7, 12, 20-24. Spaces are fine. A range with nothing after the hyphen means "to the end", so 8- takes page 8 onwards. Page numbers are the pages of the PDF counted from one, which is not always the number printed on the page itself.
- How do I delete pages instead of extracting them?
- Switch the mode from Keep to Remove. The same list of page numbers then means the pages to take out, and everything else stays, in its original order. That is how you drop a cover sheet, a blank page or a section you do not want to send on.
- Can I split a document into separate single-page files?
- Not in one action. This produces one PDF each time it runs, so getting ten separate files means running it ten times, once per page. That is deliberate: doing it in one go would mean building a zip file, and the range tool covers what most people actually need, which is pulling out a section or dropping a page.
- Does the quality change?
- No. The pages you keep are copied across exactly as they were, not re-rendered or recompressed. Text stays text, images stay at their original resolution, and the result is simply a smaller document containing the same pages.