How to split a PDF into several files: a step-by-step guide

Drop the PDF anywhere on the page, or press Add files. Its pages appear in the middle with a pair of scissors in every gap between them. A Word, Excel or PowerPoint file or a photo works too - it is turned into a PDF as it arrives.

Manual is the starting mode. Click the scissors between two pages and the document is cut there; click them again to take the cut back. Each cut shows as a line through the gap, and the header says how many parts you will get.

In a long document it is quicker to type the cuts: Cut after pages takes page numbers separated by commas - "3, 5" cuts after page 3 and after page 5, which gives three files: pages 1-3, 4-5 and 6-8. Press Enter to apply.

A number that doesn't exist in the file (after the last page, say) is marked red and dropped when you press Enter. Clear cuts removes them all.

Every N cuts after every N pages - for a stack of two-page forms scanned into one file, say. Set Pages per file with the stepper or type it. The last part takes what is left, so it can be shorter.

The cut field follows every mode: here it shows "2, 4, 6". Change a number in it and the tool switches to Manual with your cuts - a quick way to start from a rule and adjust one cut by hand.

Parts divides the document into as many roughly equal parts as you set under Number of parts. When the pages don't divide evenly, the first parts get one page more.

Per page makes a separate PDF of every single page - to file scanned invoices one by one, or to send a single page. A 20-page document gives 20 files in the ZIP.

By size makes parts no bigger than the size you set under At most - 10, 20 or 25 MB with one click, or any number of megabytes. The tool measures what each page really weighs, including the pictures and fonts it shares with others, and puts as many pages into a part as fit.

A page that is bigger than the limit on its own goes into a part of its own; the file list marks it with ⚠ and the hint suggests Compress PDF, which can make it smaller. If the whole file already fits, the tool says so and there is nothing to cut.

Press Split PDF. The line under the button says what comes out ("1 file → 3 PDFs"). The parts are saved to your device at once, together in one ZIP archive; the button then says Saved and turns into Save, which saves the same ZIP again. Any change to the cuts turns it back into Split PDF.

Add several PDFs to split them in one run. Above the file list, Apply to decides how:

• Selected file - every file keeps its own mode and cuts; you set them on the file selected in the list.
• All files - one rule for every file: every 5 pages, 3 parts, at most 10 MB, or cuts after the same page numbers. The thumbnails become numbered placeholders, since the rule goes by page position, not by one file's content. The files' own settings are set aside, not lost.

Under Selected file, Copy to the other files under the options gives the settings you see to every other file as its own - then adjust the odd one out.

Without an account, and with a free one, you can split two files in a run, each up to 15 MB. With Pro there is no limit on the number or the size of the files, and you can save a split rule ("every 2 pages", "at most 20 MB") as a preset.

• Need only some pages, not all of them in parts? Extract Pages.
• Want to throw pages away instead? Delete Pages.
• Putting parts back together, in another order? Merge PDF.