Split a PDF into separate files

Splitting by ranges, the hands-on way

Many split tools ask you to type ranges such as 1-3, 8-10, or to cut every so many pages. The PDF Editor has neither typed ranges nor an every-N setting. You pick pages with the mouse, and each save makes one file. In practice that covers the usual jobs:

• One range: click page 4, Shift-click page 9, and save those 6 pages.
• Scattered pages: Ctrl-click each one. They are saved in the order they have in the document, whatever order you clicked them in.
• Two separate runs in one file: a Shift-click replaces earlier picks with one unbroken run, so Shift-click the first run, then Ctrl-click the pages of the second.
• Chapters, or every two pages: pick and save one part at a time. It takes a few clicks per file, and you see each part before it is written.

To cut a scanned stack of 40 receipts into 40 files, skip the picking and use Save each page as its own PDF. When two or more pages are picked, it saves only those, one file each.

What ends up in each new file

Each part is a new PDF built from copies of the pages you picked. Nothing is redrawn or recompressed, so text stays sharp and searchable and scans keep their resolution. Anything you added in the editor travels with its page: typed text, a signature, highlights, white-out.

Two things to know before you save:

• Page numbers and a watermark switched on in the Document panel are drawn on the part as well, and the numbering starts again at 1 in every part. Switch page numbers off first if the parts should not be numbered.
• Bookmarks and fillable form fields belong to the whole document, so they stay behind. If you need them, keep the full PDF too.

Every save opens the Windows Save dialog, so you name each part and choose its folder as you go.

Why people split PDFs

A PDF often holds more than you want to send. Typical reasons to cut one up:

• Sending only the signed page of a contract, or the one statement page a form asks for.
• Turning a scanned stack into separate documents: each invoice, each letter, each receipt.
• Passing one chapter of a long report or manual to a colleague.
• Staying under an upload limit on a job or government portal by sending smaller parts.
• Separating a family's scanned paperwork, saved as one long PDF, into a file per person.

If you only want to drop a few pages and keep the rest as one file, deleting pages is quicker. To copy a handful of pages into a new document, see extract pages, and to put parts back together, merge PDF.

Splitting with what Windows already has

Windows can split a PDF without extra software, by printing. Open it in Microsoft Edge, press Ctrl P, choose Microsoft Print to PDF as the printer, type the pages you want, and print them to a new file. For a single part, once, that is fine. The result is a reprint of the pages rather than the pages themselves, though: links stop working, form fields are printed flat, and every further part means another trip through the print dialog, typing page numbers without thumbnails to check them against. Printing also works on one PDF at a time, while the page bar can gather a part's pages from several files. Octoolo copies the pages as they are, and a whole document becomes one file per page in a single step.