You can extract pages from a PDF into a new file with the Extract PDF Pages tool: drop in your document, click away the pages you do not want so that only the ones you need stay selected, and click Process. The selected pages download as a new PDF, in their original order. It is free, there is no account, and the work happens in your browser so the original is never uploaded.
Extracting pages is the right move when you want to share part of a document without the rest. A client needs the three pages that concern them, not the whole eighty. A signed page has to be sent on its own. One chapter of a manual should live in a separate file. This guide shows the steps, compares the options, and covers the snags that turn up in practice, including how this differs from splitting a file into several pieces.
Step by step
- Open the Extract PDF Pages tool.
- Drop your PDF onto the drop zone, or click to pick it from a folder.
- Wait for the thumbnails to appear. Every page begins selected.
- Click each page you do not want. A page you click is taken off the selection, and the pages that stay selected are the ones that will be saved.
- Click Process, then Download to save a new PDF containing only the selected pages.
Your original document is not touched, so you can load it again and pull out a different set whenever you like.
How selection works
The grid starts with every page selected, so extracting is done by elimination. For a chapter in the middle of a long document, that means clicking away the pages before and after it. For a single page out of a large file, it means clicking away everything else, which takes longer. There is no box for typing a range such as 3 to 7, so be ready for some clicking on big documents.
The pages you keep are copied into the new file in the order they had in the original, with their text, images and layout carried across. Some interactive features, such as form fields and certain annotations, may not survive the copy. The tool does not reorder them as it extracts. If you need a different sequence, extract first, then run the new file through the Reorder PDF Pages tool.
At least one page must stay selected. A PDF with no pages is not a valid file, so if you deselect everything the Process button stays disabled until at least one page is selected.
Extract or split: which do you need?
These two jobs sound alike but produce different results.
Extract gives you one new PDF made of the pages you chose. Use it when you want a single piece, such as the pages relevant to one person.
Split cuts a document into several parts at once and delivers them together. Use the Split PDF tool when you want to break a long file into sections, so that each chapter or each batch becomes its own file in one go. If you find yourself running the extractor again and again on the same document, splitting is probably the better fit.
Delete is the same operation seen from the other side. Both tools take the same clicks and save the same kind of file, so the choice depends on the job rather than the effort. If you are pulling a section out to make a new file, use Extract. If you are cleaning unwanted pages out of a document you are keeping, the Delete PDF Pages tool is framed for that job.
Other ways to pull pages out of a PDF
macOS Preview. On a Mac you can open the file, show the thumbnail sidebar, and drag the pages you want out to the desktop or into a new document. Another route is to print a page range and choose to save it as a PDF. Both work, though the steps are easy to get slightly wrong, and neither is available outside the Apple ecosystem.
Adobe Acrobat. Acrobat has a command for extracting pages and lets you type page ranges. It generally needs a paid Acrobat plan and a desktop install. If you already have it and work with long documents, the typed ranges are quicker than clicking.
Word and other source files. If you still have the original document, you can print or export just the pages you need from there. That can give a clean result but depends on having the source and on the layout holding up when it is exported again.
Online extractor sites. These work on any device, but most of them upload the entire file to their servers first. When the document is a contract, a bank statement or a medical report, sending all of it away to obtain a few pages undoes the point of extracting only part. Free versions also tend to limit file size or the number of uses.
This tool. It is a free PDF extractor that runs on any device with a modern browser. It does not accept typed ranges, and it does not split into several files at once.
Common problems
You selected the wrong pages. Nothing is saved until you press Process. Click a page again to select it once more, adjust the grid and process when it looks right. If you already downloaded the wrong result, just start over from the original.
The new file is out of order. Pages keep their original sequence. Reorder the extract afterwards if you need something else.
The pages you want are scattered. Selection is not limited to one block. You can keep page 2, page 9 and page 31 together, and the new file will contain them in that order.
Page numbers inside the new file are not 1, 2, 3. Any number printed on a page stays exactly as it was, so an extracted page that said 14 still says 14. To number the new file freshly, use the Add Page Numbers tool on the result.
The extract is still large. A single image-heavy page can be big on its own. Use the Compress PDF tool on the result if you need to bring it down for email.
The PDF is protected or damaged. A password-protected file has to be unlocked before it can be read, and a corrupt file may not load. Confirm that it opens in a normal PDF viewer.
The page grid is slow to appear. Large scans take time to draw thumbnails, and the work is done on your device rather than on a server, so older hardware needs a little patience.
Is it private?
Pages are copied into the new document by code that runs in your own browser. Your PDF is read into memory on your device, the pages you kept are assembled there, and the result is handed back as a download. Nothing is uploaded, and no request carries your file data. Analytics are off on pages where files are processed, and error reports, where enabled, are scrubbed of file contents and names.
To see for yourself, open the Network tab in your browser's developer tools and run an extraction. The verification steps on the About page explain how to read what you see.
Offline use has a condition: the page must already be open. Once the tool's code has downloaded the first time you use it, an open page keeps working if your connection drops, and extracting pages runs on your device. Opening or reloading the page needs a connection.
Summary
To extract pages from a PDF into a new file, open the Extract PDF Pages tool, click away what you do not need, and download what is left. Reach for Split PDF when you want several files from one document, and for the delete tool when you want to keep most of it.