Split Pdf File Into Single Pages

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There are many different applications one can use to split pdf files. This article will examine the use of a few of these – PDFsam, PDFBUrst, and an online-only web application by FoxyUtils – SplitPDF.

How to Split a PDF Document by Page Without Adobe Acrobat, Using Google Chrome Install Google Chrome if you haven’t already. Navigate to the PDF either via web address or by loading a pdf from your machine. On the PDF toolbar pictured below, click the printer icon on the far right.

PDFsam

In PDFsam, spliting PDFs is a straightforward process. Start the application and select Split from the plugins list.

In the right hand panel, click the Add button, browse for the PDF you wish to split, then select your split option. The most simple split option is Burst, which will split the pdf into single pages. You can choose to split the odd or even pages, or even split after a certain number of pages or at bookmarks. It’s really a very powerful app. Finally, you need to select your destination folder, then a filename prefix and hit Run.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the final output was 12 pdf files, the start of the filename being the page number, then the prefix that was set in PDFsam, then the name of the original PDF. Simple.

PDFsam is a free open source application, available from here.

PDFBurst

In PDFBurst, splitting PDFs is even easier. You run the application and it shows you a window that says “Drag & Drop PDF Here”. You can drag and drop a PDF, or just click on the picture and it will load a file browser for you to select a PDF.

Once a PDF is selected, you will see a dialogue box appear (assuming all has gone well), indicating that the file has been split in the current folder. This basically means the folder in which you ran PDFBurst in, so perhaps that’s not so convenient. You also cannot set any filename options in the program.

PDFBurst is a freeware application, available from here.

FoxyUtils SplitPDF

Being a web application, FoxyUtils SplitPDF is quite straightforward. It is, however, a little different to the other two applications. It lets you extract a specific page range from a PDF into one file. For example, we can select pages 1-3 for extraction which will output one single pdf file with pages 1-3.

To do this, you would browse to the site here. Then click Browse and select the PDF. You must then select the page range to be split (e.g. 1 to 3). Then click Split PDF. At this point be careful! A box pops up with an ad inside, the ad may try to mislead you into downloading some adware – the download bottom is in the bottom right hand corner. This will then save the single pdf file with the page numbers your selected.

Conclusion

Out of the above applications, the most flexible option is PDFsam. It’s still very straightforward but allows you to set various useful options to make sure that you extract what you want, where you want, with the filenames you want from a pdf file. The others simply don’t offer you that level of flexibility. Plus it’s an active open source project, so it should support the latest PDF format with no issues.

How To Split Pages In Pdf

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PDFs can be split into separate files based on either Page Count, File Size or Top Level Bookmarks. The process creates new documents and does not alter the original document.

Note: Certified PDFs and PDF/A documents cannot be split. Additionally, splitting PDFs that have been digitally signed, but not certified, will remove the signatures from the resulting PDFs.

  1. Open the PDF to be split.

  2. Go to Document > Pages > Split Document. The Split Document dialog box appears.

  3. Select the method that should be used to split the PDF from these Split Document options:
    • Page Count: Splits the document by a user-defined number of pages (entered in the Page Count field). The pages in the source PDF will be uniformly split by that number. If the PDF does not divide evenly into that number, the final document will contain the remainder. For example, a ten-page document that is split using a Page Count of three will produce four new files: File 1 will contain pages 1-3; File 2 will contain pages 4-6; File 3 will contain pages 7-9; File 4 will contain page 10.
    • File Size: Splits the document by a user-defined file size (in MB, entered in the File Size MB field). If the PDF does not divide evenly into that number, the final document will contain the remainder. For example, a 10MB PDF that is split using a File Size MB of three will produce four new files: Files 1-3 will be roughly 3MB; File 4 will be roughly 1MB.
    • Top Level Bookmarks: Splits the document progressively forward based on its bookmarks.
  4. Select Update hyperlinks with relative paths to automatically update hyperlinks within the resulting split files that were created using relative paths.
  5. Select Exclude layers that do not include markups to automatically exclude any layers that would normally be included in the split document if those layers do not contain any markups.
  6. Enter the location of the folder where the resulting PDFs should be saved in the Folder field. Click the button to browse to the folder location.
    • Select Create Subfolder to create a new subfolder and save the resulting PDFs in it.
  7. Select a naming style from the File Name menu. The options available vary slightly depending on the Split By selection made earlier:

    • Add Suffix to File Name or Add Prefix to File Name: Adds the file number plus any text entered in the associated field to the end (suffix) or beginning (prefix) of the source PDF's file name to create file names for the split files.

      For example, when splitting document ABC.pdf into four parts, selecting Add Suffix to File Name creates four files named ABC1.pdf, ABC2.pdf, ABC3.pdf, and ABC4.pdf.

      When defining a suffix or prefix, use the number sign (#) to control the position of the file number. If the location of the file number is not specified, it will be added to the end of the suffix or prefix automatically.

    • Use Bookmark Names: Available only when the Split By method selected is Top Level Bookmarks, this option splits files by taking the name of the top-level bookmarks without reference to the source file's name.

  8. To split the document only from selected pages, set the page range from the Pages menu.

    • All Pages: Sets the range to all pages.
    • Current: Sets the range to the current page only. The current page number will appear in parentheses, for example, Current (2) if page 2 is the current page.
    • Selected: Sets the range to the current selection. This option only appears if pages were selected prior to invoking the command.
    • Custom: Sets the range to a custom value. When this option is selected the list becomes a text box. To enter a custom range:
      • Use a dash between page numbers to define those two pages and all pages in between.
      • Use a comma to define pages that are separated.

      For example: 1-3, 5, 9 will include pages 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9.

  9. Click OK. The Split Document dialog box closes and the split files are created.
    • If any of the pages have been digitally signed, a dialog box will appear warning that those signatures will be automatically cleared on the split PDFs. Click OK to proceed.

How To Split Pdf File Into 4 Pieces

  1. Go to File > Batch > Split Document. The Batch: Split Document dialog box appears.

  2. To add documents, use one (or both) of the following methods:

    • To add all PDFs that are currently open in Revu, click Add Open Files.
    • To select files from a local or network drive, click Add.

  3. PDFs are split in the order they appear in the File List. To change the order:

    • Click and select the desired sort option to sort the files automatically.
    • Select a file you wish to move and click either to move it up in the list or to move it down in the list to reorder the files in the list manually.
    • Select a file and click to remove it from the list.

  4. To split only certain pages of a PDF, select it, then click the Pages menu and choose from the following:

    • All Pages: Sets the range to all pages.
    • Custom: Sets the range to a custom value. When this option is selected the list becomes a text box. To enter a custom range:
      • Use a dash between page numbers to define those two pages and all pages in between.
      • Use a comma to define pages that are separated.

      For example: 1-3, 5, 9 will include pages 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9.

  5. From the Apply To menus, select among Even Pages Only, Odd Pages Only or Odd and Even Pages and among Landscape Pages, Portrait Pages or Landscape and Portrait Pages. These selections work in conjunction to form the filter, so any pages to be processed must meet both criteria selected.
  6. Click OK. The Split Document dialog box appears. Proceed with the Splitting a Document into Separate Files procedure described above for each PDF in the batch.
    • If any of the pages have been digitally signed, a dialog box will appear warning that those signatures will be automatically cleared on the split PDFs. Click OK to proceed.
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