Split PDF

Three ways to split, and when each is right

Extracting a range is the common case: you have a 90-page contract and you need clause 14, or a bank statement year and you want one month. Give the range and you get a single new PDF containing exactly those pages in order.

Splitting into fixed-size chunks suits documents that were always several things in one file — a batch of scanned invoices at two pages each, or a report you want to circulate a chapter at a time. Set the chunk size and every group becomes its own file.

One file per page is the right choice when the pages are genuinely independent: a stack of scanned receipts, a set of certificates, photographs collected into a single PDF. Be aware that a 200-page document produces 200 downloads, so it is worth checking the page count first.

How the page range syntax works

The range box accepts a comma-separated list. A bare number selects one page, so 7 gives you page seven alone. A hyphen selects a span, so 1-3 gives you the first three pages. You can mix them freely: 1-3, 7, 12-15 selects nine pages in total.

Open-ended ranges save counting. Writing 12- means "page twelve to the end", and -5 means "the beginning through page five". This is particularly useful with long documents where you do not know the exact final page number.

Pages are always emitted in ascending document order regardless of how you type the range, and duplicates are ignored — asking for 3, 1-5 gives you pages one to five once each, not page three twice. Numbers outside the document are silently dropped rather than causing an error, so a range of 1-999 on a 20-page file simply gives you all 20 pages.

What survives the split

Pages are copied as objects, not re-rendered. Text stays selectable and searchable, vector artwork stays sharp at any zoom level, and embedded fonts travel with the pages that use them. There is no quality loss of any kind, because nothing is decoded and re-encoded.

Each output file carries only the resources its own pages need, which is why splitting often produces files that add up to less than the original. A 20 MB document where all the weight is in a single scanned page will split into one large file and nineteen small ones.

Interactive form fields, digital signatures, bookmarks and document-level metadata do not carry across. A signature in particular becomes invalid by definition: it attests to the original document, and each split file is a different document.

A note on page numbers

The range you type refers to physical page positions in the file, counting from one, not to any numbering printed on the pages themselves. A report whose body starts at printed page 1 after six pages of front matter will have that page at physical position 7.

If the two numbering schemes disagree, open the document in any reader and use the page position shown in the toolbar rather than the number printed in the footer. Extracting one page first to confirm you have the right offset is quicker than redoing a large extraction.