How to Extract Pages from a PDF for Free

Quick summary: To extract pages from a PDF for free on Mac, open it in Preview, select the page thumbnails you want in the sidebar, then drag them to the desktop to create a new PDF. On Windows, open the PDF in Chrome or Edge, press Ctrl+P, set the page range to the pages you want, and print to “Save as PDF.” On iPhone, use the Files app Markup share flow with a page range.

Extracting pages creates a new, separate PDF from a subset of the original. The original file is not changed. Once you have the extracted pages, you can upload them to our AI document reader to summarize or analyze just that section.

How to extract pages from a PDF on Mac — Preview

Method 1: Drag thumbnails to desktop (fastest)

1. Open the PDF in Preview.
2. Make sure the sidebar is visible: View → Thumbnails.
3. Click the thumbnail of the first page you want to extract.
4. Hold Cmd and click to select additional non-consecutive pages, or hold Shift and click to select a range.
5. Drag the selected thumbnails out of the sidebar and drop them onto the Desktop (or any Finder folder).

Preview creates a new PDF containing only the pages you dragged. The original PDF is unchanged.

Method 2: Export selected pages

1. Open the PDF in Preview and open the Thumbnails sidebar.
2. Select the pages you want (Cmd+click for individual, Shift+click for ranges).
3. Go to File → Print (Cmd+P).
4. In the print dialog, make sure “Selected pages in Sidebar” is chosen.
5. Click PDF → Save as PDF in the bottom-left dropdown.
6. Name the file and save.

How to extract pages from a PDF on Windows

Method 1: Print to PDF with a page range (any browser)

1. Open the PDF in Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
2. Press Ctrl + P to open the print dialog.
3. In the Pages field, type the page numbers you want:
   • Single page: 5
   • Range: 3-7
   • Multiple selections: 1, 4, 8-12
4. Select “Microsoft Print to PDF” as the printer (or “Save as PDF” in Chrome).
5. Click Print / Save.

The saved file contains only the pages you specified.

Method 2: Adobe Acrobat Reader (free) — Organize Pages

Acrobat Reader’s free tier has limited page manipulation. For full page extraction, you need Acrobat Pro. However, the Print to PDF method above works in the free Reader.

How to extract pages from a PDF on iPhone

1. Open the PDF in the Files app.
2. Tap the file → tap Share (the box with the arrow).
3. Tap “Print”.
4. In the print preview, tap Pages (top of the preview) and enter the page range you want to extract.
5. Pinch out on the print preview thumbnail — this converts the print preview into a new PDF.
6. Tap Share → “Save to Files”.

The saved PDF contains only the pages in the range you set.

How to extract pages online — free

Search for “extract pages from PDF free” and choose any well-reviewed browser tool:

1. Upload your PDF.
2. Select the page numbers or ranges to extract.
3. Download the new PDF.

Privacy note: Your file is sent to a remote server. Do not use online tools for confidential documents.

How to extract pages with Ghostscript (command line)

For scripted extraction, Ghostscript produces clean output:

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH \
   -dFirstPage=3 -dLastPage=7 \
   -sOutputFile=extracted.pdf input.pdf

Replace 3 and 7 with the first and last page of the range you want. For non-consecutive pages, run the command once per range and merge the results.

To extract only one page (e.g., page 5):

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH \
   -dFirstPage=5 -dLastPage=5 \
   -sOutputFile=page5.pdf input.pdf

Extracting pages vs. splitting a PDF

These terms are often used interchangeably but have slightly different meanings:

Action	Result
Extract pages	Creates a new PDF with the selected pages; original is unchanged
Split PDF	Divides the original into multiple separate files (e.g., every 10 pages, or one file per page)

The methods above all extract (copy) pages into a new file. For splitting into multiple files, run the command-line method once per range, or use an online tool that offers split options.

Related guides

• How to compress a PDF for free — reduce the extracted file size
• How to make a PDF for free — create a new PDF to add the extracted pages to
• How to edit a PDF for free — make changes to the extracted pages
• How to password protect a PDF for free — protect the extracted file before sharing

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Does extracting pages change the original PDF?

No. All the methods above create a new file. The original PDF is not modified in any way. If you want to delete the extracted pages from the original after extraction, that is a separate step — in Preview on Mac, select those page thumbnails in the sidebar and press Delete, then save.

Can I extract non-consecutive pages (e.g., pages 1, 5, and 9)?

Yes with Preview on Mac (Cmd+click to select individual thumbnails) and with the Chrome/Edge print range syntax (1, 5, 9). The Ghostscript command-line method handles non-consecutive pages by running once per group and then merging the results.

Why do my extracted pages look different from the original?

The Print to PDF method re-renders the page, which can slightly change font rendering, color profiles, and image compression. For pixel-perfect extraction (identical bytes), use Preview’s drag-to-desktop method on Mac or a dedicated PDF library like PyMuPDF, which copies pages without re-rendering.

How do I extract all pages into individual files?

On Mac, open the PDF in Preview and select all page thumbnails (Cmd+A in the sidebar), then drag them all to the desktop — Preview creates one PDF per page. With Ghostscript, script a loop through page numbers 1 to N.

Can I extract pages from a password-protected PDF?

Not until the PDF is unlocked. See how to remove a password from a PDF first, then extract the pages.