Two Ways to Split a PDF
Use Extract Page Range when you only need certain pages — for example 1-3, 5, 8-10 extracts pages 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10 into a new PDF in that order. Use Split Every Page when you want each page as its own separate PDF (one download per page). Both modes preserve the original document's text layer, embedded fonts, hyperlinks, and bookmarks — what comes out is a true subset of the source, not a re-rendered copy.
Walkthrough: Extracting a Chapter
Say you have a 240-page research report and your professor only assigned chapter 3, which spans pages 47 to 78. Instead of emailing the whole 30 MB PDF, drop it into the splitter, switch to Extract Page Range, type 47-78, and click split. You'll receive a 32-page PDF named after the original with the page range appended — typically under 5 MB. Hyperlinks inside chapter 3 that point to other parts of the report will simply lead nowhere when clicked, but everything internal to those pages stays clickable.
When to Use "Split Every Page"
The "Split Every Page" mode is most useful for filing systems and OCR pipelines — for example, when each page is a separate invoice, or when uploading a multi-page batch to a document management system that expects one file per record. A 50-page scan becomes 50 single-page PDFs in one click. Browsers will throttle simultaneous downloads, so allow popups for this site if your file manager only receives the first few.
Common Use Cases
- Extract a chapter from a long e-book or report before sharing.
- Pull a specific form page from a multi-page application packet.
- Split scanned documents into one-page files for filing systems and DMS uploads.
- Share only the relevant pages with a client, instead of attaching the whole document.
- Prepare a thesis by separating the main body, appendix, and references into separate submissions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What page-range syntax is supported?
Comma-separated single pages and hyphenated ranges. Example: 1, 3-5, 8, 10-12. Spaces are ignored, and the order you list ranges is the order they appear in the output.
Will the original PDF be modified?
No. The original file is read once into memory; only the new split PDFs are downloaded. The source file on your disk is untouched.
Are bookmarks and hyperlinks preserved?
Internal links between pages that both made it into the split survive intact. Links pointing to pages that were dropped become inactive, and bookmarks for missing pages are removed.
Need to remove specific pages instead?
Use the Delete PDF Pages tool — it keeps everything except the pages you specify, which is faster than listing every page you want to keep.