How to delete pages from a PDF for free, from thumbnails

How to delete specific pages from a PDF

Deleting pages from a PDF in AtlasDocs is look and click. The tool shows every page as a thumbnail with its number underneath; you click the ones that should go, check the selected-pages counter and click "Delete and download". The result is a copy of the PDF without those sheets, with the suffix -edited in the name. The original stays untouched on your device, and the remaining pages stay exactly as they were: text, images and form fields preserved.

1. Open the Delete PDF pages tool and upload the file. If you upload several PDFs, pick which one to edit in the "Document" menu.
2. Click the thumbnails of the pages you want out: the blank page, the duplicate, the cover sheet or the attachment. The counter reads "3 pages selected" as you go; clicking again unselects.
3. Use "Select all" and "Clear selection" to speed things up when almost everything should go: select all and unselect only the keepers.
4. Click "Delete and download". The button only activates with at least one page selected, and the file downloads as name-edited.pdf.

There's no field for typing ranges: the choice is always visual, from the thumbnails, which avoids the classic slip of typing 12 when you meant 21. And the tool refuses to wipe everything: if you select every page, it answers "You cannot delete all pages of the document" and won't produce an empty file.

When it's worth removing pages

It is almost always faster to pull the sheet out of the PDF than to go back to the program that produced it, fix it and export again. For a scanned document it is the only way: there is no editable original. The most common cases:

• Blank sheets that slipped in during scanning or a double-sided export.
• Duplicate pages, when the same content was scanned or saved twice.
• The cover sheet, fax cover or header that doesn't belong in the final file.
• Attachments and appendices you don't want to send with the main document.
• Confidential pages that shouldn't reach whoever gets the PDF, like the sheet with bank details in the middle of a contract.

Delete or extract: which to use

Both tools use the same thumbnails, from opposite sides. Delete pages is for when a few sheets should go and the rest stays; you tick what goes. Extract pages is for when a few sheets should stay; you tick what stays and it builds a new PDF with only those, in document order. To drop 2 pages out of 30, delete; to keep 2 pages out of 30, extract. The output is the same kind of file, and in both cases the original is never changed. To reorder, duplicate or extract pages, see how to organize the pages of a PDF.

Tips so you don't delete the wrong page

• Check the number under the thumbnail before ticking: similar sheets, like pages of tables, are easy to mix up.
• To drop the cover sheet, tick only the first thumbnail; to drop the attachments, tick the final block.
• Ticked the wrong one? Click the thumbnail again to unselect, or use "Clear selection" and start over. Nothing is written before "Delete and download".
• With several PDFs uploaded, the selection resets when you switch files in the "Document" menu; finish one before moving to the next.
• Open name-edited.pdf at the end and flip through it: it's the only way to be sure the right page went.

Limits: what the tool doesn't do

• It doesn't renumber printed pages: if the document had "Page 7 of 30" written in the footer, that text stays, now with gaps. Number it again afterwards if needed.
• It doesn't edit the content of a page: it only removes whole sheets.
• It doesn't change the order of the remaining pages. For that, use Reorder PDF pages, which moves thumbnails with arrows.
• A PDF with an open password needs the password removed before deleting.
• One PDF per click: with several files, repeat the process for each.

Everything happens inside your browser: your PDF is never uploaded to any server, which matters even more when the pages you're removing are confidential.

Deleting removes the page from the file, but it isn't a black bar: if the sensitive content sits in the middle of a page that stays, use the AtlasDocs redaction tool instead of deleting.