How to Split a PDF into Separate Pages (Free, Online)

You have a 50-page PDF report and you only need to send pages 12 to 15 to a colleague. Or you have a scanned document where pages are out of order and need reorganising. Or your bank statement is 100 pages long and you only need the relevant month for a mortgage application.

Splitting a PDF is one of those tasks that sounds like it needs Adobe Acrobat or some paid software. It does not. This guide explains exactly how to split any PDF for free in under a minute.

Why would you split a PDF?

Combining files into a single PDF is one common task, but splitting them apart is just as frequent:

• Sending only relevant pages. Your accountant needs three pages of a 40-page bank statement. Sending the whole document is unnecessary and exposes information they don't need to see.
• Extracting chapters from a long report. A 200-page corporate report contains five chapters by different authors — each author needs only their own section for review.
• Separating mixed-content scans. You scanned a stack of unrelated paperwork as one batch. Now you need to split it into individual documents — your tax return, your tenancy agreement, your medical letter.
• Breaking large PDFs to fit email limits. An 80 MB PDF cannot be sent by Gmail or Outlook. Splitting it into two 40 MB halves makes it sendable.
• Removing pages with sensitive information before sharing — keep the original intact, send a redacted version.
• Reorganising page order — split, then re-merge in the correct sequence using PDF merge.

Three ways to split a PDF

Criply offers three modes that cover every splitting scenario:

1. Split into individual pages

Every page of the PDF becomes its own separate file. Upload a 10-page PDF and you get 10 separate PDFs back, each containing one page, packaged into a single ZIP file for download. Useful when you need to extract every page individually — for example, when archiving each page as a separate document.

2. Split by range

You specify groups of pages and each group becomes one PDF. Enter ranges like "1-3, 4-8, 9-12" and you get three separate PDFs: one with pages 1 through 3, another with pages 4 through 8, and a third with pages 9 through 12. Use this for splitting a long document into logical sections.

3. Extract specific pages

You list individual page numbers and they become one combined PDF. Enter "1, 3, 5, 7" and you get a single PDF containing only those four pages, in that order. Use this when you only need certain pages — sending pages 2, 5, and 12 of a contract for review without sharing the rest.

How to split a PDF in 3 steps

1. Open the tool. Go to criply.co/pdf/split in any browser. Works on Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android.
2. Upload your PDF. Drag and drop the file onto the upload area, or click to browse. Files up to 100 MB are supported. The page count appears once the file is loaded.
3. Choose how to split, then download. Select individual pages, ranges, or specific pages. Enter the page numbers if needed. Click Split PDF. Multiple output files come as a ZIP; a single output file downloads directly.

The whole process runs in your browser — your PDF is never uploaded to a server, so contracts, financial statements, and confidential documents stay completely private.

How to send only the relevant pages of a long PDF

This is one of the most common use cases. The cleanest workflow:

1. Open your long PDF and note which pages the recipient actually needs (e.g., pages 12, 15, and 17–19).
2. Go to Criply's split tool, upload the file, and select Extract specific pages.
3. Enter the page numbers separated by commas: "12, 15, 17, 18, 19".
4. Click Split PDF and download the result — a single PDF containing only those five pages.
5. Attach to your email and send.

If the resulting file is still too large for email, run it through a PDF compressor afterwards. A 15 MB extracted file typically compresses to 3–5 MB without visible quality loss.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a page limit for splitting?
No. You can split PDFs of any page count. Files up to 100 MB are supported on the free tier.

Will the PDF quality change after splitting?
No. Split PDFs are exact copies of the original pages — no re-rendering, no compression, no quality loss. Extracted pages look identical to how they appeared in the original.

Can I split a password-protected PDF?
No. Encrypted PDFs need their password removed first. After splitting, you can re-apply password protection to each output PDF if needed.

What if I only want to remove a few pages from a PDF?
Use the split tool's "extract specific pages" mode and list every page except the ones you want to remove. For example, to remove page 5 from a 10-page PDF, enter "1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10".

Related tools

• Split PDF — Split PDFs by individual pages, ranges, or specific pages
• Merge PDF — Combine multiple PDFs into one document
• Compress PDF — Reduce file size for email after splitting
• PDF to JPG — Convert PDF pages to image files