How to split a PDF into multiple files or extract just some pages

How to split a PDF into multiple files

Splitting a PDF in AtlasDocs is one click: the Split PDF tool breaks the whole file apart, one page per PDF, and downloads everything in a single ZIP. When you only want a section (a chapter, an appendix, the signed pages), the route is Extract pages: tick what matters in the thumbnails and get a new PDF with just that. Either way, the original stays untouched on your computer.

1. Open the Split PDF tool and upload your file (or several at once).
2. Click "Split and download ZIP" (with several files, "Split 3 PDFs"). There is nothing to configure: every page becomes a PDF.
3. Unzip the downloaded archive, named after the original plus -split. Inside, the files are numbered in document order: report-pagina-1.pdf, report-pagina-2.pdf and so on.

Three simple rules: a single-page PDF isn't split, and the tool says "The PDF has only one page — nothing to split."; with several PDFs, you get one ZIP per file; and there is no split by range (pages 1 to 10 in one file, 11 to 20 in another). For that result, extract each section separately with the tool below.

Never opened a ZIP? On Windows, right-click the file and choose "Extract All"; on a Mac, double-click it. A folder appears with the numbered PDFs, ready to attach one by one. The ZIP exists only so the browser can download dozens of files at once without asking permission for each.

How to extract just the pages you need

1. Open the Extract pages from a PDF tool and upload your file. With more than one PDF in the list, pick which one to work on under "Document": extraction runs on one file at a time.
2. Click the thumbnails to tick pages; the counter shows "3 pages selected". In long documents, "Select all" and "Clear selection" save clicks.
3. Click "Extract and download" (the button stays disabled until you tick at least one page). You get a new PDF, with the suffix -pages in its name, containing only the ticked pages.

• Pages come out in document order, not in the order you clicked. To change the order, use Reorder pages afterwards.
• You can't extract all of them: the tool replies "Select fewer than the total pages — extracting all returns the same file."
• For a range, tick the sequence (11 to 20, say); for several sections, repeat the extraction with another selection, since each run produces one file.
• Check the numbering before you pick: the thumbnails follow the order of pages in the file, not the number printed in the footer.

Split, extract or delete: which one to use

Split is for when every page needs to become its own file, such as receipts scanned in a batch or individual certificates. Extract is for when you want to keep a few pages out of a large document. And when it's the other way round, removing one or two pages and keeping everything else, the most direct route is the Delete PDF pages tool: tick the unwanted pages in the thumbnails and download the document without them.

When splitting beats sending the whole thing

• You want to share just one chapter or appendix of a long report, without making the other person scroll past dozens of pages to find it.
• Several documents were scanned in one pass and became a single PDF (a contract, a receipt and a proof of payment stuck together), and each now needs to go somewhere different.
• The whole file is over the size limit of an email or an upload form, but the part you actually need to send is small.
• You want to keep only the signed pages, or only the ones with the data that matters, and file the rest separately.

After splitting: merge again in a different order

Separating and reuniting go hand in hand. If you split in order to build a new document (the cover from one file, the body from another), send the resulting PDFs to the Merge PDF tool, order them with the ↑ and ↓ arrows and download a single file. It's the simplest way to reorganize a document without any PDF editor. If all you need is to change the order, duplicate or extract pages, see how to organize the pages of a PDF.

Everything happens in your browser: the PDF you split is never sent to any server. The pages you separate never leave your computer.

Keep the original. Splitting and extracting create new files and never alter the source PDF, so you can always redo it with another selection.