How to extract pages from a PDF

Sometimes you want to create a cut-down version of a long PDF that includes only the relevant pages. This can also reduce the file size and make it easier to share via email, which is a handy bonus.

Fortunately this can be done without buying an expensive PDF editing package such as Adobe’s Acrobat DC, although Acrobat does include excellent editing capabilites that you can’t get for free.

All you need is your web browser, ideally Google Chrome. However, any browser that can open a PDF file will do the trick as long as you’re running Windows 8.1 or later, or you install a PDF printer.

Anyway, things are simplest if you fire up Google Chrome and open the PDF you want to work on. To do that, press Ctrl+O and select a file from your hard drive.

Alternatively, you can right-click on it in a File Explorer window and choose Open with, and then select Google Chrome from the list.

Click the printer icon at the top right, or press Ctrl+P. This brings up the print options where you need to click the Change… button and select ‘Save as PDF’ from the list. If you’re not using Chrome, look for a Microsoft Print to PDF option in the list of printers.

Now click on the radio button below ‘All’ next to pages and use the text box to choose which pages you want to extract from your PDF. You can use the preview window on the right to scroll up and down and see what’s on each page.

Then type the numbers of the pages to extract, separated by commas. If there are any consecutive pages, you can specify a range with a dash, such as 8-10.

Once you’re done, click the Save button (other browsers may still show this as ‘Print’) and enter the filename to save and navigate to the folder where you want to save it.

Click the Save button and your PDF – with only the pages you selected – will be created.

You might also like to know how to create a PDF from Jpeg images and how to unlock a secure PDF.