How to break up a PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

This post will explore the extract feature in Adobe Acrobat Pro which will help users break up a PDF into smaller files. But first, here is a video overview of roughly 5:30 minutes.

Text overview of how to break up a pdf

If you have PDF that has several hundred pages in it you may want to break up the file. In this case, I need a large textbook broken down into smaller segments or chapters so that I can further manipulate the files.

If your file has crop marks, make sure to check this other post on how to fix that problem first. Coming Soon.

Before we can begin, make sure you have added your organize pages button to your tools panel.

Step 1

Select the organize pages button from the tools panel on the right side of the screen

Step 2

Select the page thumbnails of the pages you want to have as a separate file. In this case, I am selecting the “front material” content first.

Step 3

Select the extract button and choose delete pages after extracting, and then extract. This will separate the file from the large file. You will then have your extracted pages and the original files minus the extracted files.

Step 4

Save the file and repeat!

In the video at the start of this blog, I continue this process and end up with a book that had 150 pages in it broken down into 10 files.

Now that I have these pdfs, I can do a variety of things with them including:

• Convert the PDFs to Word
• Make the PDFs Accessible
• Turn them into Kurzweil files