How to split a PDF
Splitting is the opposite of merging: you take one PDF and produce smaller ones. There are three common shapes to it.
1. Extract a page range
Pull pages 5–12 of a report into their own file. Ideal when you need to send just one section without the rest.
2. Extract a single page
Grab one page — a signed page, a certificate, an invoice — as a standalone PDF.
3. Burst into individual pages
Break a 40-page scan into 40 separate one-page PDFs at once. Handy for filing systems that expect one document per file.
It's lossless
Like merging, splitting copies the original page objects into new files rather than re-rendering them, so quality is untouched. Fonts and vectors carry over exactly.
FreshPDF can split a range, extract the current page, or burst a document into single pages — all in your browser, no upload.
A note on file names
When bursting into many files, use a consistent naming scheme (e.g. report-page-01.pdf) so they sort correctly. Zero-padding the numbers keeps page-2 from sorting after page-10.
Put it into practice — free
Edit, sign, merge, redact, OCR and convert PDFs right in your browser. No upload, no account.
Open the FreshPDF app