Split PDF

Four different jobs people call splitting

"Split a PDF" means at least four different things depending on who is asking, so all four are here rather than making you work around a tool that only does one.

Pull pages out. You need pages 4 to 6 of a 200 page document and nothing else. This is by far the most common, and it is what most people mean.

Delete pages. The opposite: keep everything except the blank scans, the fax cover sheet, or the internal notes that should not go to the client.

Split into parts. One bundle becomes several files in one go. Type 1-3, 4-6, 7-end and you get three files. This is the one that saves real time on a combined document that arrived as a single scan.

One file per page. Every page becomes its own PDF. Useful when a scanner has put a batch of separate documents into one file.

How this tool works

Whichever way you split, the pages are copied as whole objects into new documents. Nothing is redrawn, so text stays selectable, links keep working and drawings stay vector.

Where the result is more than one file they are zipped in the page and handed over as a single download, numbered so they sort correctly in a folder: page-02 sorts after page-19 in every file manager there is unless the numbers are padded to the same width.

The page numbers are forgiving on purpose

This gets typed in a hurry, usually from a page count somebody read off the corner of a screen, so the parsing is deliberately relaxed.

Commas or semicolons both work. Spaces anywhere are fine. 8-end and 8-n both mean from page eight to the last one. A backwards range like 5-3 is read as three to five rather than as nothing.

And a page number that does not exist is simply skipped. Ask for pages 1, 99 and 3 in a ten page file and you get pages 1 and 3, rather than an error that throws away the rest of a long list because of one typo.

Your original is never changed

Splitting creates new documents. The file on your machine is untouched, so there is nothing to undo if you get the range wrong. Just change the numbers and go again.

Quality is not affected

Pages are copied across as whole objects rather than redrawn. Text stays real text, so it is still selectable and searchable in the new file. Links still work. Vector drawings stay sharp at any zoom.

That is worth checking in any tool you use, because some rasterise pages into images to split them, which permanently destroys the text layer and makes the result far larger. If you have ever split a PDF and found the text was no longer selectable, that is what happened.

Nothing is uploaded, and there are no limits

The whole thing runs on this page using your own machine. Nothing is sent anywhere, which matters here because the documents people split are contracts, bank statements, medical letters and scans of identity documents.

There is no page limit, no file size cap, no daily quota, no watermark and no account. For comparison, iLovePDF caps a free split at a single file and Smallpdf will not publish a number for any of its free limits at all. Nothing is metered here because there is no server doing the work.

Password protected files

A permissions password, which restricts printing or editing but leaves the file readable, is fine. A password needed to open the document is not: the contents are genuinely encrypted and nothing can read them without it. Open it in your PDF reader, save an unlocked copy, and split that.