Split PDF

This extracts pages — it does not burst a file apart

That is worth being clear about, because "split" is used for two different jobs. If you wanted forty single-page files out of a forty-page document, this is the slow way to do it.

What the range box really accepts, including the traps

Watch the Selected counter as you type. It is the only reliable confirmation that what you typed means what you think. If it says 1 and you expected 12, stop and reread the box.

Removing a page, not keeping one

Most people arrive here wanting to delete something: a blank final page, a cover sheet, an appendix, a page with the wrong figure on it. The box does not take a delete list. It takes a keep list, so you invert the problem.

• A ten-page file, drop page 7: type 1-6, 8-10.
• Drop the first two pages of a forty-page report: type 3-40.
• Keep only the odd pages of a duplex scan: type them out, 1, 3, 5, 7. There is no every-other-page option.

The Total pages figure at the top of the tool is read from your file, so you always have the real last page number in front of you.

Why two pages out of a 50 MB file are not 2 MB

Pages do not carry their size on their own. They reference fonts, images and colour data, and those resources come along with the copy. Extract two pages from a long report and the fonts those pages use come along exactly as they were embedded in the original, and are not cut down further here. Extract a page from a scan and you get that page's full-resolution image.

So the new file is smaller, but rarely in proportion to the page count. If the size is the actual problem, follow the extract with compress PDF — and read the limits there first, because a scanned page will not shrink much whatever you do to its structure.

When not to use this

• The file is password-protected. Encrypted PDFs are not opened, and you get a short message saying the file could not be read. Remove the password where it was set.
• The document is digitally signed. The extract is a new file, so the signature does not come with it. Never send an extracted page as proof of a signed original.
• You need the bookmarks. The outline belongs to the document, not to the pages, so the new file has none.
• It is a fillable form. Fields may stop working once their pages are copied into a new document. Test the output before sending it to anyone who has to type in it.
• You need one file per page. Nothing here produces a ZIP. One run, one file.
• You are trying to redact. Removing a page removes that page, but everything on the pages you keep is still fully there, including text hidden under a black rectangle drawn by some other tool. Splitting is not redaction.

They asked for the signed page, not the contract

1. Drop the contract. Note the Total pages figure.
2. Open the file in your normal reader and find the page number you need. The tool counts pages in file order, starting at 1, regardless of printed page numbers or any page labels your reader shows.
3. Type that number, check Selected reads 1, and extract. The download is named after your original with -pages on the end.
4. Open the result and look at it before sending. Thirty seconds of checking beats sending the wrong page of a contract.

If you need to put pieces back together afterwards — the signed page plus a new appendix, say — that is merge PDF. If the appendix is currently a set of photos, images to PDF turns them into a document first.

Sending less is the point

Extracting pages is usually a privacy act in itself. You are separating the three pages somebody is entitled to see from the thirty they are not: the statement pages without the rest of the year, the medical letter without the full history, the payslip without your colleagues' figures.

It would be a strange act to perform by uploading the whole document to a stranger's server first. Here the file is read by your own browser, the pages are assembled on your own machine, and the result goes straight to your downloads. Nothing is stored, so there is nothing to delete afterwards and no link anybody else could find.

The rest of the set works the same way — see the compression tools or everything at once.