How to remove pages from a PDF

Most tools have no delete button, and it is not an omission. Deleting pages and extracting pages are the same operation: you describe the pages you want to keep, and everything you leave out is gone.

To drop page 7 from a twenty-page document, ask for 1-6, 8-20. The result is your document without page 7.

The split tool here works this way and shows the resulting page count as you type, which is the quickest way to catch a mistake before you commit to it.

Pages come out in the order you list them. 5, 1, 3 produces a three-page document in that sequence, not a sorted one. This is useful — it means the same box can reorder a document as well as trim it — but it also means a typo changes the order rather than being rejected.

A backwards range like 5-3 is a different matter. A good tool refuses it and says so. A tool that silently reads it as 3-5 has quietly given you a different document from the one you asked for, and you will not necessarily notice.

1. 1

   Count first

   Work out how many pages you should end up with and compare it to what the tool reports. Removing one page from twenty leaves nineteen; if the number says eighteen, a range is wrong.

2. 2

   Open the result

   Look at the pages either side of a removal. That is where an off-by-one shows up — the removed page is still there, or the one before it has gone too.

3. 3

   Remember what removal does not do

   Taking out a page removes its content, not references to it. A contents page, cross-references and page numbers printed on the pages themselves will all still describe the original document.

Removing a page does genuinely remove its content from the new file — this is not the black-box problem. But two things are worth knowing.

• If only part of a page is sensitive, removing the whole page is blunt. Redacting that part and keeping the page is usually what you actually want.
• The original file still exists wherever you left it. Producing a trimmed copy does not change the copy in your downloads folder, your sent mail, or the shared drive.

And if the document is sensitive at all, do it somewhere that does not upload it. How to check whether a tool uploads your file.