How to Extract Pages from a PDF: Select and Save Specific Pages

Pulling the Pages You Need

A 200-page report lands in your inbox, but you only need pages 45-52. A client sends a contract bundle, and you need to isolate the NDA on pages 3-7. A professor shares a textbook chapter as a 30-page scan, but your study group only needs the exercises on pages 22, 25, and 28.

Extracting pages from a PDF is one of the most common document operations, yet many people resort to clumsy workarounds -- screenshotting pages, printing and rescanning, or copying text manually. None of these preserve the original formatting, hyperlinks, or image quality.

Proper page extraction creates a new PDF containing only the pages you selected, with all formatting, images, fonts, links, and bookmarks intact. The original file remains unchanged. It is a non-destructive operation that gives you precise control over which content you keep and share.

This guide covers every extraction method: contiguous page ranges, non-contiguous selections, splitting a document into individual pages, creating multiple sub-documents, and automating extraction for batch workflows.

Page Range Notation

Before extracting pages, you need to know how to specify which pages you want. Most PDF tools use a standard notation system:

Understanding this notation lets you express exactly what you need in a single operation, whether you are using an online tool, desktop software, or command-line utility.

How to Extract Pages: Step-by-Step

Method 1: Using the Online Split Tool

The split PDF tool on ConvertIntoMP4 is purpose-built for page extraction. It renders thumbnail previews of every page so you can visually select exactly what you need.

1. Upload your PDF. Drag and drop your file or click to browse. The tool processes the document and displays page thumbnails.
2. Select pages. Click individual thumbnails to select them, or enter a page range in the input field. Selected pages are highlighted.
3. Choose the extraction mode:
   • Extract selected pages -- Creates a single PDF containing only the pages you picked
   • Split into individual pages -- Creates a separate one-page PDF for each selected page
   • Split by range -- Creates multiple PDFs based on the ranges you specify
4. Download the result. For a single extracted PDF, download it directly. For multiple files, download them individually or as a ZIP archive.

Method 2: Using Preview on macOS

macOS Preview includes a built-in page extraction feature:

1. Open the PDF in Preview
2. Go to View > Thumbnails to show the page sidebar
3. Click to select pages in the sidebar (Cmd-click for multiple, Shift-click for ranges)
4. Drag the selected thumbnails to the desktop or a Finder window
5. The dragged pages are saved as a new PDF

This method is quick for simple extractions but lacks the precision controls and batch capabilities of dedicated tools.

Method 3: Using the Print Dialog

The print-to-PDF trick works across all platforms:

1. Open the PDF in any reader
2. Open the Print dialog (Ctrl/Cmd + P)
3. In the page range field, enter the pages you want (e.g., "1-3, 7, 12-15")
4. Select "Print to PDF" or "Save as PDF"
5. Save the new file

This method re-renders the pages, which means form fields get flattened and some interactive elements may be lost. If you need to preserve form fields and annotations, use a dedicated extraction tool instead.

Method 4: Command-Line Extraction

For automation and batch processing, command-line tools provide the most flexibility.

Using pdftk:

# Extract pages 5-10
pdftk input.pdf cat 5-10 output extracted.pdf

# Extract non-contiguous pages
pdftk input.pdf cat 1 3 7 15 output extracted.pdf

# Extract mixed ranges and singles
pdftk input.pdf cat 1-3 7 12-15 output extracted.pdf

# Extract odd pages only
pdftk input.pdf cat odd output odd-pages.pdf

# Extract even pages only
pdftk input.pdf cat even output even-pages.pdf

Using qpdf:

# Extract pages 5-10
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 5-10 -- extracted.pdf

# Extract non-contiguous pages
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1,3,7,15 -- extracted.pdf

Using Python (PyMuPDF):

import fitz  # PyMuPDF

doc = fitz.open("input.pdf")
new_doc = fitz.open()  # empty document

# Extract pages 5-10 (0-indexed)
for page_num in range(4, 10):
    new_doc.insert_pdf(doc, from_page=page_num, to_page=page_num)

new_doc.save("extracted.pdf")

Splitting a PDF into Individual Pages

Sometimes you need every page as a separate file. This is common for:

• Document scanning workflows where each page represents a separate form or receipt
• Distribution where different pages go to different recipients
• Indexing where each page needs individual metadata or filing
• Processing where each page will be converted to an image or processed separately

How to Split into Individual Pages

Online: Use the split PDF tool, select all pages, and choose "Split into individual pages." Download the result as a ZIP containing one PDF per page.

Command line with pdftk:

pdftk input.pdf burst output page_%03d.pdf

This creates page_001.pdf, page_002.pdf, etc. The %03d format produces zero-padded numbers for correct sorting.

Command line with qpdf:

for i in $(seq 1 $(qpdf --show-npages input.pdf)); do
  qpdf input.pdf --pages . $i -- page_$(printf "%03d" $i).pdf
done

For details on splitting and other PDF manipulation, see our complete guide on how to merge and split PDFs.

Creating Sub-Documents

A common workflow involves splitting a large document into logical sections, not just individual pages. For example:

• A quarterly report split into monthly sections
• A training manual split into chapters
• A contract bundle split into individual agreements
• A conference proceedings split into individual papers

Planning Your Splits

Before extracting, map out the page boundaries for each section:

With pdftk, you can create all of these in a single command:

pdftk input.pdf cat 1-4 output report-cover.pdf
pdftk input.pdf cat 5-8 output report-executive-summary.pdf
pdftk input.pdf cat 9-25 output report-q1.pdf
# ... and so on

Or script it for automation:

#!/bin/bash
declare -A sections=(
  ["report-cover"]="1-4"
  ["report-executive-summary"]="5-8"
  ["report-q1"]="9-25"
  ["report-q2"]="26-42"
  ["report-q3"]="43-59"
  ["report-q4"]="60-76"
  ["report-appendices"]="77-95"
)

for name in "${!sections[@]}"; do
  pdftk input.pdf cat ${sections[$name]} output "${name}.pdf"
done

Preserving Document Properties

When extracting pages, you want to preserve as much of the original document's structure as possible.

What Gets Preserved

• Page content: Text, images, vector graphics, and backgrounds are always preserved exactly
• Fonts: Embedded fonts travel with the extracted pages. Subset fonts (containing only used characters) may lose characters from non-extracted pages, but this rarely causes issues
• Hyperlinks: Internal links within extracted pages are preserved. Links pointing to non-extracted pages may break
• Annotations: Comments, highlights, and other annotations on extracted pages are preserved
• Form fields: Interactive form fields on extracted pages remain functional

What May Be Lost

• Bookmarks/outline: The document's bookmark tree is typically regenerated for the extracted pages, but top-level structure may be simplified
• Cross-page references: Internal links, "see page X" references, and page number cross-references become invalid when the page they point to is no longer in the document
• Page numbering: The extracted document starts numbering from 1, regardless of the original page numbers. If the source document used Roman numerals or custom numbering, this is lost
• Document metadata: Title, author, and creation date may be reset to reflect the extraction operation rather than the original document

Advanced Extraction Techniques

Extracting Pages from Multiple PDFs

When you need pages from several source documents combined into one output:

# Pages 1-5 from doc1 and pages 10-15 from doc2
pdftk A=doc1.pdf B=doc2.pdf cat A1-5 B10-15 output combined-extract.pdf

This is useful for assembling custom documents from multiple sources -- pulling the executive summary from one report and the financial tables from another, for example. The merge PDF tool also supports this by letting you upload multiple files and select pages from each.

Extracting with Page Rotation

Some extracted pages may need rotation, especially from scanned documents where orientation is inconsistent:

# Extract pages 5-10 and rotate page 7 by 90 degrees clockwise
pdftk input.pdf cat 5-6 7east 8-10 output extracted.pdf

In pdftk notation, east means rotate 90 degrees clockwise, south means 180 degrees, west means 90 degrees counter-clockwise. For more on fixing page orientation, see our guide on how to rotate PDF pages.

Extracting with Reduced File Size

Extracted PDFs sometimes carry overhead from the original document -- unused fonts, metadata, and cross-reference tables sized for the full document. To clean this up:

# Extract and optimize
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 5-10 -- --linearize extracted.pdf

The --linearize flag optimizes the output for efficient loading and strips unused objects. For aggressive size reduction after extraction, see our guide on how to reduce PDF file size.

Common Use Cases

Academic and Research

Researchers frequently need to extract specific pages from journal articles, conference papers, or textbooks. Key pages might include abstract and conclusion sections, specific figures or tables, or bibliography pages. The ability to extract and reassemble these pages into study materials or literature review collections saves significant time.

Legal and Compliance

Legal professionals extract pages from contract bundles, deposition transcripts, and court filings on a daily basis. Extracting the signature page from a contract, isolating a specific exhibit, or pulling relevant testimony pages from a transcript are routine operations that demand precision -- extracting the wrong pages from legal documents is not an option.

Business Operations

Monthly reports, meeting minutes, financial statements, and policy documents often need to be broken down and distributed to different stakeholders. Extracting relevant sections and distributing them individually is more efficient than sending the full document to everyone and hoping they find their section.

Education

Teachers extract test pages, assignment sheets, and reading materials from larger compiled documents. Students extract relevant chapters or problem sets from course materials. School administrators extract individual student records from batch-processed documents.

Extracting Pages vs. Other PDF Operations

Wrapping Up

Page extraction is a foundational PDF skill that bridges the gap between the documents you receive and the documents you actually need. Whether you are isolating a single page for a quick email attachment or systematically decomposing a 500-page manual into chapter-level files, the operation is the same: select the pages, extract them, and save.

The key to efficient extraction is choosing the right tool for your volume and complexity. For occasional single extractions, the online split PDF tool handles everything through a visual interface. For regular batch processing or scripted workflows, command-line tools like pdftk and qpdf provide the automation and precision that scale with your needs. For complex multi-source assembly, combining extraction with the merge PDF tool lets you build exactly the document you need from any combination of sources.