Extract Pages from a PDF Document to Create a New PDF Document

Sometimes you don't need everything in that massive report, or maybe it's so big it won't even fit on your thumb drive. Perhaps there are only half dozen pages that are of actual interest, so the best thing to do is simply save them as their own file. So leave that hefty file behind for a sleeker, slimmer PDF.

Steps

Acrobat Professional on PC or Mac

  1. Launch Adobe Acrobat Professional. Open the document whose pages you want to extract.
  2. Click the Pages tab to the left of the Acrobat document window. The Pages pane is displayed, showing thumbnail images of the pages in the document.
  3. Set up your pages. In the Pages pane, drag the thumbnail images of the pages you want to extract so that they appear sequentially.
    • For example, to extract the first and the third pages of a document, drag the thumbnail image of the third page upwards until a blue bar appears above the thumbnail image of the second page. The blue bar indicates the new position of the third page when the image is released.
    • Release the image to place the first and the third pages sequentially. The page you have shifted is now the second page of the document.
  4. On the Document menu, point to click the Pages icon, then select Extract. Alternately, you can right-click on any of the selected pages for the same menu.
    • The Extract Pages' dialog box is displayed.
  5. Set the page range. If the page range showing in the Extract Pages dialog is not correct, enter the correct page range of the pages you want to extract.
  6. Adjust your settings. To delete the extracted pages from the original document after extraction, select the "Delete Pages After Extracting" check box.
    • Click "Extract Pages As Separate Files" to create a new file for every page you're extracting. Leave it unchecked to keep all extracted pages in one new file.
  7. Click OK. Acrobat extracts the specified pages into a new PDF document.
  8. Save and close the new document. You'll be able to change the name and location, and then return to the original document. Choose Save to automatically save as a PDF file, or Save As..." to choose from a variety of options, including PDF, PNG, JPEG, Word document, and many more.
  9. Clean up your original file. If you have chosen not to delete the extracted pages from the original document, and want to revert the order of the shifted pages,click Revert on the File menu. Otherwise, save your edited PDF as you normally would.

Use Google Chrome

  1. Open the Google Chrome browser.
  2. Press ctrl-o to open the pop-up dialogue box to find the file from which you want to extract the pages.
  3. Find or type the filename and click "Open".
  4. While looking at your file, click on the menu, top right, that looks like 3 little black bars.
  5. Select "Print".
  6. Click on the button that says "change" next to "destination".
  7. Select "Save as PDF".
  8. Click the next button down from "All" and type in your desired page range.
  9. Hit "Save".
  10. You will be prompted (via pop-up dialogue box) at this point to type the file name, select the file location, and then hit "Save" to finish.

Preview on the Macintosh

  1. Launch Preview. Open the document whose pages you want to extract, then click the Thumbnail button at the top of the window. The thumbnail tray will slide out, showing you the pages in your document.
  2. Set up your pages. If you have non-contiguous pages you wish to extract to a single file, drag the pages together so they are contiguous, in the order you wish them to appear in the new document. Optionally, you can shift-click to select all the pages you want to extract.
  3. From the File menu, select Print. In the print dialog, enter a page range you wish to print. If you've selected the pages you want to print in the sidebar, simply choose "Selected Pages" in Sidebar.
  4. Print to PDF. At the bottom left of the print dialog, click the PDF button, then select Save as PDF..."
  5. Name your file. Navigate to the location where you wish to save the file, give it a name, and save it. That's it!

SmallPDF Online Tool (all platforms)

  1. Visit Smallpdf.com
    Use your favorite browser to visit http://merge.smallpdf.com.
  2. Choose the documents you want to extract pages from.
    Drag-and-drop your PDF (or multiple PDF files) into the drop area on the site.
  3. Edit you files and rearrange the order.
    Switch to the "Page mode" (2.) on the site. Then you are able to see the single pages. In the area underneath each picture you find (right) the number of the document (move your cursor over the the number to see the title) and on the left side the page number. Now you can rearrange the order and choose the pages you'd like to extract and remove the remaining ones by clicking the X-symbol in the corner of an image.
  4. Merge PDF.
    When you are done and the upload is completed you can create the final PDF by pressing the button below the preview area. A new PDF file will be created, automatically downloaded and you can find it in the download folder of your browser.

CutePDF Writer

  1. Open the CutePDF website. Select CutePDF Writer. This will take you to the downloads page. CutePDF Writer is a free program.
  2. Download the necessary files. You will need to download the CutePDF installation file as well as the GPL Ghostscript converter. Both are linked on the site.
  3. Install both files. Install the converter, and then install the CutePDF software. It will not install a program that you open. Instead, it installs itself as a printer that you can select from any program's Print menu.
  4. Open the PDF you want to extract individual pages from. You can open it in any program that reads PDFs. Open the Print menu, and select the pages that you want to extract instead of printing the whole thing. You can use the Range section to select multiple pages.
  5. Select CutePDF from the list of available printers. Every Print menu should have some sort of dropdown menu or list of available printers. Select CutePDF, and then click Print.
  6. Choose where to save the file. A few seconds after you click Print, a window will appear asking where you want to save the PDF and what you want to name it. CutePDF does not actually print anything, but instead creates a new PDF file from the pages that you selected.

PDFsam

  1. Download PDFsam from the PDFsam website. Visit the official website and download the appropriate PDFsam version for you system.
  2. Install PDFsam. An installer is provided for Windows and Mac while the Zip bundle can be used on any system where Java is available.
  3. Select the merge/extract PDF module. Open PDFsam and select the merge/extract PDF module.
  4. Add the PDF document you want to extract pages from. Click Add and select the PDF document you want extract pages with PDFsam.
  5. Select page numbers you want to extract. Double click the "Page Selection" editable cell and write the page numbers or page ranges you want to extract. Multiple numbers or ranges must be comma separated.
  6. Set the output document. Set the file name and path of the resulting file.
  7. Click Run. A friendly ding will inform you when your PDF file has been extracted.

Tips

  • If security is set to Page extraction not allowed, the method above will not work. You may have better luck simply printing to a PDF.

Warnings

  • Acrobat applications (both Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Pro) inhibit printing to PDF. Acrobat Pro only supports extraction, and Acrobat Reader does neither extraction nor printing.

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