# Split a PDF - By Page Range, or Every N Pages

Page: https://hirantha.me/tools/pdf-split
Part of: Hirantha Sandaruwan Lakshan free tools (https://hirantha.me/tools)
Updated: 2026-07-31

Break one PDF into several, by page ranges or every N pages.

This is a free tool that runs in the browser: open the page to use it. File tools process files on the visitor's own device; files are never uploaded or stored. No account, sign-up, payment or watermark.

Break one PDF into several files - by custom page ranges, every fixed number of pages, or at specific page numbers - all from a visual page grid in your browser. Downloads as a zip of the resulting files.

A page thumbnail grid shows the whole document before you choose how to split it, so you can count pages visually instead of guessing numbers from a page count field.

Three modes cover the common cases: custom ranges (like '1-3, 7, 9-12') for arbitrary groupings, every N pages for splitting a long scan into equal chunks, and 'at these pages' for marking where a new file should start - useful when several documents were scanned into one PDF.

Each output file is extracted directly from the source at the object level, so page quality, text, and links are identical to the original - nothing is re-rendered as an image.

Q: What file do I get back - one PDF or several?
A: Several - one PDF per group, delivered together in a single zip file.

Q: Does splitting work on a password-protected PDF?
A: Yes, enter the password when prompted, then split as normal.

Q: Will page quality or text selection be affected?
A: No - pages are extracted directly rather than rendered as images, so text stays selectable and quality is unchanged.

Q: Is there a page limit?
A: No fixed limit - documents of several hundred pages work fine, limited only by your device's memory.

Q: Is my file uploaded to preview the pages?
A: No, the thumbnail grid renders locally in your browser tab.

Q: Can I split at specific page numbers?
A: Yes, you choose where the document divides rather than being forced into fixed-size chunks.

Q: Does splitting keep bookmarks?
A: Bookmarks pointing at pages that aren't in a given output file can't survive into it. Page content, text, and images all carry over intact.

Q: Can I split a very large PDF?
A: Yes, though the whole file is loaded into memory first, so a several-hundred-megabyte document is far more comfortable on a laptop than a phone.

Sources: Portable Document Format (PDF) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF); Web Workers API - MDN (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API)

Related tools:

- [Merge PDFs](https://hirantha.me/tools/pdf-merge.md): Combine several PDFs into one, in the order you choose.
- [Organise a PDF](https://hirantha.me/tools/pdf-organise.md): Delete, reorder, and rotate pages in a PDF.
- [Compress PDF](https://hirantha.me/tools/pdf-compress.md): Shrink a scanned or image-heavy PDF by re-encoding its photos.