Split PDF

Why Split PDF Files?

Large PDF documents often contain more information than you need to share. Legal contracts, financial reports, research papers, and scanned documents frequently run dozens or hundreds of pages — but you only need to send or archive specific sections. Splitting a PDF lets you extract exactly the pages you need without exposing the rest of the document.

According to Fortune Business Insights (2024), the global document management system market is valued at $7.16 billion and is projected to reach $24.34 billion by 2032 — organizations increasingly need to break large PDFs into manageable sections.

PDFJolt's PDF splitter processes everything in your browser using WebAssembly. Your files never leave your device — making it the safest option for splitting confidential documents like legal contracts, medical records, and financial statements.

How PDFJolt Splits PDFs

PDFJolt uses pdf-lib, a proven open-source library, to manipulate PDF documents entirely client-side. When you select pages, PDFJolt creates a new PDF document and copies only the selected pages from the original — preserving all formatting, fonts, images, and interactive elements.

Two splitting modes are available:

• Extract Selected Pages — Pick individual pages or page ranges (e.g., "1-5, 8, 12-15") and combine them into a single new PDF. Perfect for pulling out specific sections of a report.
• Split into Multiple Files — Define split points to divide a document into separate PDFs. For example, splitting a 20-page document at pages 5 and 10 produces three files: pages 1-5, 6-10, and 11-20.

Common Use Cases

Legal Documents

Lawyers frequently need to extract specific clauses, exhibits, or signature pages from lengthy contracts. PDFJolt lets you select exactly the pages you need and share them without exposing the entire agreement.

Academic Papers

Researchers can extract the methodology section, results, or bibliography from a journal article to share with colleagues or include in a literature review.

Financial Reports

Extract quarterly summaries, specific financial statements, or audit findings from annual reports — without sharing the complete document with stakeholders who only need part of it.

Scanned Documents

When scanning multi-page documents to PDF, pages sometimes end up in the wrong order or include unwanted pages. Use PDFJolt to extract only the pages you need and create a clean document.

PDFJolt vs Other PDF Splitters

Feature	PDFJolt	Adobe Acrobat	iLovePDF	Smallpdf
Price	Free	$19.99/mo	Free (limited)	$12/mo
Privacy	Files never uploaded	Cloud processing	Server upload	Server upload
Visual Page Selection	Yes	Yes	Limited	Limited
Range Input	Yes (e.g., 1-5, 8)	Yes	Yes	No
Multiple Split Modes	Extract + Split	Multiple	2 modes	1 mode
File Size Limit	10 MB (free)	Unlimited (paid)	25 MB (free)	5 MB (free)
Works Offline	Yes	Desktop only	No	No
Account Required	No	Yes	No (limited)	No (limited)

Privacy & Security

Every major PDF splitting tool — iLovePDF, Smallpdf, PDF24, Adobe online — uploads your files to their servers for processing. PDFJolt is fundamentally different: your PDF never leaves your browser. The splitting happens entirely in your device's memory using WebAssembly technology. No server upload, no cloud storage, no data collection, no account required.

This makes PDFJolt the safest choice for splitting confidential documents. Whether you're handling legal contracts, medical records, financial statements, or personal identification — your data stays on your device.

Tips for Best Results

• Use the page range input for quick selection: type "1-5, 8, 12-15" to select specific pages without clicking each thumbnail.
• Click individual thumbnails to toggle pages on or off — selected pages are highlighted with a blue border.
• Use Extract mode when you need specific pages combined into one file.
• Use Split mode when you need to divide a document into separate sections at specific points.
• For very large PDFs, thumbnail generation may take a moment — the page count is shown immediately so you can start entering ranges while thumbnails load.