Split PDF
Extract the pages you need, or cut one PDF into several. Type ranges such as 1-3, 5, 8-10 and choose a single file or one per range. Nothing leaves your device.
How to use Split PDF
- Upload the PDF you want to split.
- Enter the page ranges to keep (e.g. 1-3, 5, 8-10).
- Choose “Extract” for one file, or “Split each range” for separate files.
- Download your result (zipped if multiple files).
About Split PDF
Two quite different jobs hide behind the word split. One is extraction — lifting pages 12 to 18 out of a long report and keeping only those. The other is division — cutting a ninety-page bundle back into the six documents it was assembled from. Both run from the same range box: type 1-3, 5, 8-10, then pick whether the output is one file holding those pages or one file per range, delivered as a zip. Single pages and spans mix freely, a reversed span such as 9-4 is corrected rather than rejected, and repeated pages collapse to one.
Pages are copied at object level, so what comes out is not a re-render of what went in. Selectable text stays selectable, vector diagrams stay sharp at any magnification, and a 300 DPI scan keeps the exact compressed image data it arrived with. The result is smaller purely because it holds fewer pages. That makes extraction a real privacy step as well as a convenience: the pages you leave behind are absent from the new document rather than hidden inside it, so a bundle of statements can be reduced to the one page a letting agent or an application actually asked for.
One thing catches almost everybody out. Page numbers here mean positions in the file, counted from one, and not the numbers printed on the paper. A report with a cover sheet and two roman-numeralled front pages puts its printed page 1 at position four, so read the figure from your reader’s page counter before typing anything. A range that runs past the end is rejected with the valid bounds named, which is quicker than discovering an empty output later. Locked documents are the other stopping point: an encrypted PDF cannot be read at all until its password is removed.
The absence of a server is what removes the usual restrictions. Free web splitters generally cap uploads around ten or twenty megabytes and put longer documents behind a subscription — a line drawn around their hosting costs rather than around the difficulty of the work. What bounds you here is this tab’s own memory: comfortably a few hundred megabytes on a desktop, a good deal less on a phone juggling other apps. A very long scanned bundle is therefore slow rather than forbidden, and the progress readout keeps moving while the zip is assembled.
Frequently asked questions
How do I choose which pages to keep?
Type them as a comma-separated list of single pages and spans: 1-3, 5, 8-10 keeps eight pages in that sequence. Entries may be listed in any order you like, and anything overlapping is merged instead of duplicated.
Can I turn one PDF into several separate files?
Yes — that is what the “split each range” mode does. Every span you typed becomes its own PDF, named after the pages it holds, and the whole set arrives as a single zip so you are not clicking through a dozen downloads.
Is my document uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is opened directly from disk by the browser and worked on inside the page, so there is no transfer, no server-side copy and no queue. That is what makes it reasonable to cut up payslips, medical letters or legal papers here.
Can I split a password-protected PDF?
Not until the password is off. Encryption hides the page tree from the parser, so the tool reports the problem rather than producing a file full of unreadable pages. Save an unlocked copy from a reader that has the password, then split that.
Why do the page numbers not match the ones printed on the page?
Because ranges count physical positions from the start of the file. Covers, blank versos and roman-numeralled preliminaries all occupy positions while usually carrying no printed number, which shifts everything after them. Take the figure from your reader’s page counter rather than from the page itself.
Is there a size limit, and does it work on a phone?
Nothing is capped, and mobile browsers are supported, but a handset has far less memory to spare than a laptop. If a several-hundred-megabyte scan reloads the tab, cut it into halves first and work on each in turn.
Related tools
- PDF to Text — Extract selectable text
- Merge PDF — Combine multiple PDFs into one
- JPG to PDF — Turn images into a PDF
- PDF to JPG — Export pages as images
- Compress PDF — Shrink image-heavy PDFs
- Organize PDF Pages — Reorder & delete pages visually