Split and organise PDF pages

How do you split a PDF into just the pages you want?

Open the tool above, cross out the pages you do not want, and press Save PDF. What you get back is a new file containing only the pages left standing — renumbered from one, in whatever order they are sitting in. The original on your computer is untouched.

If you know the numbers already, the quicker route is the Keep only these pages box: type 1, 4, 7-12 and everything else is crossed out in one go. That is the fastest way to pull a single unit out of a fifty-page scheme of work.

How do you delete a page from a PDF?

Click the small × on the page and it is crossed out — struck through with a red line, greyed, and gone from the document on the right. It is not removed from the screen, which is deliberate: the commonest mistake is dropping one page too many, and a page you can still see is a page you can still put back with a single click.

Nothing is written until you press Save, so no amount of crossing out can damage the file you started with.

How do you rotate a page that scanned in sideways?

Press the ↻ button on that page and it turns a quarter of the way round; press it again to keep going. Only the pages you turn are affected, which matters because the usual problem is one sheet in a twenty-page scan that went through the feeder the wrong way up.

The turn is added to whatever rotation the page already carried, so a scan that arrives on its side and is then turned once ends up upside down rather than back where it started — keep pressing and it comes round.

Can you change the order of pages in a PDF?

Yes — drag a page and drop it where you want it, and everything shifts round it. The document on the right renumbers itself as you go. There is also a Reverse the order button, which sounds like a novelty and is not: it is the fix for a stack of paper fed into a scanner back to front, which is a weekly event in most staff rooms.

What do teachers use this for?

Four jobs, and between them they are most of the reason this tool exists.

The job	What to do
Print the worksheet without the answers	Cross out the last page or two. Save. The answer sheet stays in your copy and never reaches the class.
Pull one unit out of a long scheme	Type the range into the Keep only box — 18-27 — and save that as its own file.
Fix a scan that fed in wrongly	Turn the sideways pages, or press Reverse if the whole stack came out backwards.
Take a child’s work out of a shared pack	Cross out every page but theirs before it goes home or into a report. Nothing leaves your machine while you do it.

Does taking pages out spoil the ones you keep?

No. The pages that survive are copied across exactly as they were, with their text, fonts and images intact — nothing is flattened into a picture and nothing is re-compressed. Text stays selectable and searchable, and a page you rotate is genuinely rotated rather than redrawn.

The file will usually be smaller than the original simply because it has fewer pages in it. If it is still too big for an email, that is a job for compressing rather than for dropping more pages.

Splitting, or merging?

They are opposite jobs and it is worth being clear which one you are in. This tool only ever changes what is already there — taking pages out, turning them, reordering them. Merging only ever adds, joining separate files into one. Doing both in sequence is completely normal: merge the pack together first, then come here and organise the result.