Extract pages from a PDF — free

A split returns a single contiguous range (pages 5 to 12). An extract returns any set of pages you select (pages 3, 7, 9, 14). Pelican's Split tool supports both — you just choose between range entry and the visual page picker.

Lifting specific signed pages out of a multi-party contract. Pulling the figures and tables out of an academic paper. Building a hand-picked highlights PDF from a long PowerPoint export. Sharing the resume page out of a CV plus cover-letter bundle.

The extracted pages keep their original resolution, fonts, and form fields. The output PDF has no watermark and no injected metadata branding — it's a clean document.

Extraction happens entirely in your browser. The PDF doesn't leave your device, which matters for confidential client work or personal documents.

Splitting feels right when the document divides cleanly into chunks — chapter one, chapter two, an appendix. Extraction feels right when the pages you actually need are scattered across the document with everything else in between. A 90-page board pack might contain the four slides you need to forward, sitting at pages 6, 17, 42 and 78. Splitting would force you to define four separate ranges and accept four separate output files. Extracting lets you pick those four pages and ship them as one tidy four-page PDF.

The mental model is closer to 'cherry-pick' than 'cut'. You're not breaking the source document into segments; you're assembling a new document out of the pages that matter.

When you extract a set of pages, you can also choose the order they appear in. Picking pages 5, 2, 9 in that order produces an output where the original page 5 is first, the original page 2 is second, and the original page 9 is third. This is genuinely useful when you're building a highlights pack for a client — you can put the strongest exhibit at the front rather than wherever it happened to sit in the source.

If you want the extracted pages in their original order, pick them in ascending order and they come out the way you'd expect.

Extraction is one of the most privacy-sensitive PDF operations because the whole reason you're doing it is to remove pages the recipient shouldn't see. Uploading the document to a server, even briefly, undermines that intent. PDF Pelican reads the file into your browser tab, extracts in memory, and downloads the result locally. The pages you discarded are discarded — they never touched a PDF Pelican server.

Splitting feels right when the document divides cleanly into chunks — chapter one, chapter two, an appendix. Extraction feels right when the pages you actually need are scattered across the document with everything else in between. A 90-page board pack might contain the four slides you need to forward, sitting at pages 6, 17, 42 and 78. Splitting would force you to define four separate ranges and accept four separate output files. Extracting lets you pick those four pages and ship them as one tidy four-page PDF.

The mental model is closer to 'cherry-pick' than 'cut'. You're not breaking the source document into segments; you're assembling a new document out of the pages that matter.

When you extract a set of pages, you can also choose the order they appear in. Picking pages 5, 2, 9 in that order produces an output where the original page 5 is first, the original page 2 is second, and the original page 9 is third. This is genuinely useful when you're building a highlights pack for a client — you can put the strongest exhibit at the front rather than wherever it happened to sit in the source.

If you want the extracted pages in their original order, pick them in ascending order and they come out the way you'd expect.

Extraction is one of the most privacy-sensitive PDF operations because the whole reason you're doing it is to remove pages the recipient shouldn't see. Uploading the document to a server, even briefly, undermines that intent. PDF Pelican reads the file into your browser tab, extracts in memory, and downloads the result locally. The pages you discarded are discarded — they never touched a PDF Pelican server.