At some point, you probably had to edit the PDF file by moving pages, deleting a page, or extracting a page or set of pages into a separate PDF file. I recently had to reorder several PDF pages and extract a different set of pages into a separate PDF file.
In this article, I’ll show you how you can do this using Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro DC. I will also mention some free tools you can use to reorganize and extract PDF pages if you don’t have Adobe Acrobat.
Also, don’t forget to check out my other articles about extracting images from PDFs, finding text in multiple PDFs, extracting text from PDFs, and how to reduce PDF file size.
Move PDF pages around
The latest version of Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro makes it very easy to reorder the pages in a PDF file. First open the PDF file and click “Tools”.
In the Create and Edit section, you will see an Arrange Pages button. After that, you will see thumbnails of all pages in the PDF file.
To rotate the page, you simply press the left or right rotate button. Deleting a page is as easy as clicking the trash can icon for that page. Now, to move a page or change the order of PDF pages, simply click and drag the page to a new location. You will see a vertical blue bar where you drag the page.
That’s all it takes to move pages to PDF. From this screen, you can also replace PDF pages with another page from another PDF file, split a PDF file, or insert a PDF file anywhere in the current document.
If you don’t have an Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro subscription, you can use the online tool from Sejda. Just click “Download PDF Files” and you’re done. The interface is very similar to that of Adobe Acrobat. The only limitation is that the file size cannot exceed 50 pages or 50 MB, but this is a very large limit.
Extract pages from a PDF
On the same screen as above, we can also extract pages from a PDF file. If you click the Checkout button in the menu bar, you will see another submenu with several options.
First, you need to select the pages in the PDF that you want to extract. To select more than one page, hold down the SHIFT or CTRL keys. SHIFT will select multiple pages in sequential order, while CTRL will allow you to select pages from anywhere in the document.
After you have selected the files, you can check the box “Delete pages after checkout” or “Checkout pages as separate files.” If you do not check any of these options, the selected pages will be extracted into a single PDF file, and the pages will remain in the original file.
If you check both boxes, the pages are removed from the original file and each page is saved as a separate PDF file.
Again, if you need to do it for free, you can use Sejda’s website again, but this time use their PDF extraction tool. Select pages by simply clicking on them or using SHIFT and then click the Extract Pages button.
This tool is limited to 200 pages per PDF file or 50 MB. It’s almost the same as Adobe Acrobat, but doesn’t give you the ability to save each page as a separate PDF file. You can also select all odd or all even pages.
Extracting pages and rearranging pages in PDF are two common tasks that hopefully you can now do it quickly with the tools mentioned above. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to comment. Enjoy!
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