How to Split a PDF: Extract the Pages You Actually Need

Nobody wants your entire 200-page report. They want page 47. Splitting a PDF is the difference between a considerate email and a thoughtless one — and it takes about ten seconds.

Two ways to split

Extract a range produces one new PDF containing only the pages you chose. This is what you want when sending a specific section to somebody.

Every page separate produces one PDF per page, delivered as a ZIP. Useful for archiving, for splitting scanned batches back into individual documents, or when each page needs to go to a different person.

Writing the page range

The syntax is simple and worth learning properly, because it is the same almost everywhere.

• Commas separate individual pages — 3, 7, 12
• Dashes make a range — 5-9
• Mix them freely — 1-3, 7, 12-15 gives you pages 1, 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, 14 and 15
• Leave it blank for every page

Pages are counted as they appear in the document, starting at 1. Ignore any page numbers printed on the pages themselves — a report with a cover and two blank pages will have its “page 1” at position 4.

Doing it

Open Split PDF, choose your file, pick a mode, type the range, press split. The result downloads straight away — a single PDF for a range, or a ZIP when you split every page.

Nothing is uploaded. The document is read from your disk, split in your browser’s memory, and written back to your downloads folder.

Splitting does not change the pages

Pages are copied across exactly as they are. Text stays selectable, images keep their resolution, fonts are preserved, and form fields keep working. A split page is byte-for-byte the page you started with.

The one thing that does not survive is anything that referred to the wider document — a link pointing to a page you did not extract has nowhere left to go.

Common situations

Sending one signed page. Extract that page alone. The recipient gets what they asked for and you avoid circulating the rest of the contract unnecessarily.

A scanner produced one giant file. Split every page, then recombine the groups you want with Merge PDF. Two quick steps beat rescanning.

The file is too big to email. Splitting is often better than compressing, because it keeps full quality and searchable text. Send section one, then section two.

Removing pages. There is no delete function, and none is needed — extract everything except the pages you want gone. To drop page 5 of a 10-page document, extract 1-4, 6-10.

Reordering pages. Split every page, then merge them back in the order you want.

When it will not work

Password-protected files. If the PDF needs a password to open, remove it first by opening the file in your reader and saving an unprotected copy. Restrictions on printing or editing usually do not block splitting.

Very large documents on a phone. Because the work happens on your device, memory is the ceiling. Splitting a 300 MB scan is comfortable on a laptop and unreliable on an older phone.

Scanned pages with no text layer. Splitting works fine, but the output is still images of text. Splitting cannot make a scan searchable — that needs optical character recognition, which is a genuinely different job.

A note on what you are splitting

People split exactly the documents that deserve care: contracts, bank statements, medical records, visa application packs, tenancy agreements.

None of it is uploaded here. Everything happens inside your browser, so there is no server copy, no retention window and no deletion policy to take on trust. And it is free for life, with no sign-up and no daily limit — split as many documents as you need, as often as you need, with no account and no watermark.

Split your PDF now →