Two ways to split
Type the pages you want to keep and you get one new PDF containing just those pages, in the order you typed them. Or tick 'Save each page as a separate PDF' to get every selected page as its own file, bundled in a ZIP. Leave the page box empty to work with all pages, which is the quickest way to burst a whole PDF into single pages.
How do I write page ranges?
The page box understands lists and ranges, separated by commas:
- 5: just page 5.
- 1-3: pages 1, 2 and 3.
- 8-: page 8 to the last page.
- -4: the first page to page 4.
- 1-3, 7, 10-12: several ranges in one go.
- 3, 1, 2: the same pages in a new order; pages are saved in the order you type them.
Common jobs
A few examples of what the page box makes easy:
- Send only the signature page, or the pages someone needs to review, instead of a 60-page contract.
- Pull one statement month out of a year-long bank or credit-card PDF.
- Separate a scan of several documents into one PDF each, using a page range per document.
- Reorder pages that a scanner fed in the wrong sequence, with a list like 2, 1, 4, 3.
- Remove blank or unwanted pages by listing every page except those.
Does splitting a PDF reduce quality?
Pages are copied, not re-rendered, so text stays selectable and images keep their resolution. One thing can surprise people: a single extracted page isn't always tiny. If the original PDF embeds full fonts or a large background image used by every page, each extracted page still needs its own copy. It's normal for a one-page extract of a 10 MB document to weigh a few hundred kilobytes.
Document-level extras such as bookmarks, attached files and digital signatures don't carry over to the new PDFs, because they belong to the original document.
Files stay on your device
The PDF is opened and split in your browser with pdf-lib, and the ZIP for single pages is built in memory too. Nothing is uploaded, which makes it safe for payslips, statements and other documents you'd rather not hand to an online service. Password-protected PDFs need the password removed first: open the file with the password and save an unprotected copy.
Why don't the page numbers match the ones printed on the page?
The page box counts the pages in the file from the first page, which is 1, to the last. It ignores the page numbers printed on the pages. That matters for books and reports whose front matter is numbered i, ii, iii, or whose chapters restart at 1. If your reader shows 'iv (6 of 120)', the number to type here is 6. Most PDF readers show this physical page number next to the printed label.
Can I split a PDF without any extra tool?
You can extract pages without any extra tool by printing to PDF: in Chrome or Edge, open the PDF, press Print, choose Save as PDF as the destination and type a custom page range. On a Mac, Preview does the same through File → Print → PDF. This works, but it re-prints the pages, which can drop links and bookmarks and occasionally changes how pages look.
This tool copies the original page objects instead, so what you get is the page exactly as it was in the source. It also handles 'one PDF per page' in a single step, which printing can't.
Splitting very large PDFs
Scanned books and long reports can run to hundreds of megabytes. Splitting works on them, but the whole file has to fit in your device's memory while it's processed, so for files over a few hundred megabytes a laptop or desktop is more reliable than a phone. Saving every page of a large PDF as a separate file also produces a big ZIP. If you only need a few sections, extracting each range into its own PDF is faster.
Combining with the other PDF tools
Splitting pairs well with the other tools. To move pages between documents, split out the pages you need from each, then put them together in Merge PDF. To fix a sideways page in a document you're splitting, run the result through Rotate PDF. All three work on the original pages without re-printing, so the final document is as sharp as the files you started with.