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Maybe you need to take a page out to edit and then put it back in again? Or perhaps you have to take a couple of pages out and divide those into separate PDFs. Or, perhaps you just need to remove a page altogether. Ultimately, what you are looking for is how to separate pages from a PDF file.
In this article, we’ll be going through how to extract a PDF on Mac and Windows, as well as how to do it using our free PDF.Live editor. This post will answer how to:
- Split a PDF into multiple PDF files
- Extract one or more pages from a PDF
- Divide large PDFs into smaller PDFs
- Save just one page or specific pages from a PDF
- Unmerge a PDF
- Break apart and cut pages from a PDF
- Separate a PDF into individual pages or chapters
- Export just one page from a PDF
- Pull pages from a PDF
- Take pages out of a PDF
Who knew there were so many ways to ask the same question? Whether you’re seeking to pull one page from a PDF file, extract and remove a page from a PDF, or separate one larger PDF into two or more smaller PDFs, the steps are basically the same.
First, Save Your PDF
Before we get started, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve saved the PDF you want to edit onto your computer. If you’re viewing the PDF online, you’ll need to save the PDF to your computer before you can do anything. To do this, you can select “Print” in your browser settings. If you have a Chrome browser, you’ll likely see something similar to this:
On a Mac, the save as PDF might look like this:
Rather than choosing your printer as a destination, select “Save as PDF” instead. This will not send the PDF to your printer, but it will download the document to your computer as a PDF. Follow your computer’s prompts to name the PDF and where you’d like to save it. Once you do this, you can edit the PDF as it’s now on your computer.
Extract a PDF Page with PDF.Live
PDF.Live allows you to extract, separate, and edit pages of a PDF all in one app. You can import your PDF by dragging the file into PDF.Live’s editor.
- Insert, delete, and edit PDF pages
- On the left side of the PDF editor, you’ll notice you can select “View page thumbnails and re-order pages” to view all the pages of your PDF. If you right click on a page, you’ll notice you have options to insert a blank page, delete a page, or rotate it.
- So, if you want to extract a page to permanently remove it from the PDF, follow those prompts.
- Extract PDF pages for other uses
- To extract a page from a PDF and save it in its own file, navigate to the page you’d like to extract and then select “Print.” From there, follow the same steps to name the extracted page and where to save it.
- Merge documents
- If you’ve extracted pages from one PDF document and want to add them to a different one, you will need to save both documents as PDFs on your computer. Then, from the main PDF.Live landing page, select Merge. You can then drag and drop the files you’d like to merge. Once the files are merged, put the merged file back into the PDF.Live editor to make any additional adjustments.
Separate PDFs on Mac
Apple devices come with the Preview App, which allows you to open and edit PDFs on your computer. With preview, you can add, delete, move and copy pages within Preview.
- Delete PDF pages on a Mac
- To delete a page, open Preview and go to View > Thumbnails to select the page or pages to delete and use the delete key on your keyboard. You can also go to Edit > Delete.
- Extract one page from a PDF on a Mac
- The easiest way to extract a single page from a PDF is to open Preview and from the thumbnail view, click and drag the page to your desktop.
- Move pages
- To move pages, go to View > Thumbnails or View > Contact Sheet, and then drag the pages to where you’d like them to go in the PDF
- Copy pages from one PDF to another
- Similarly to moving pages, go to View > Thumbnails or View > Contact Sheet and drag the thumbnail images from one PDF to the other.
Separate PDFs on Windows
Most Windows devices do not have a PDF editor included. However, when you’re using the above steps to obtain your PDF from a browser, you may have noticed that you can print specific pages of a PDF separately. If you see the destination called “Microsoft Print to PDF,” you can extract specific pages from a PDF.
You can also use PDF.Live, which requires no software to be downloaded and installed on your computer.
- Extract Pages from a PDF
- To extract pages from a PDF using Microsoft Print to PDF, first open the PDF you want to extract on a browser. You can drag the PDF to your browser to do this, or select Open With > “your browser of choice.”
- Then, select the pages you want to extract. You can write “3” if you want to extract page 3, “3-5” if you want to extract pages 3 through 5, or “3,5” if you just want to extract pages 3 and 5.
- Then, select print and those pages will save on your computer.