PDF Extraction with Adobe Acrobat (new): A Step-by-Step Guide

Video Guide

In most document formats (DOC, XLS or CSV) extracting pieces of information is a simple copy and paste function. PDFs are a little more challenging. Using this blog post, with the above video guide as an example, we’ll show you how to perform a complete PDF extraction using the updated Adobe Acrobat interface.

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PDF Extraction

First, head over to Adobe Acrobat and open up the PDF you wish to break up into smaller segments. Select the Organize Pages tool on the left. You’ll see thumbnails of each page of your PDF. You can zoom in and out as needed.

Next, hold down the Shift key and select the thumbnails for each page you’d like to extract from the main PDF.

Hold down Shift key to select pages for extraction

Move back to the Organized Pages tool on the left and select Extract Pages. Then, select Delete Pages After Extracting to isolate these pages from the main PDF.

Finally, select Extract.

Notice the tabs at the top now show the original PDF and your new PDF extraction. We’ll rename each extraction after we’ve created a number of them.

Time to head back to the original PDF. Again, hold down the Shift key to choose all the files needed for your next PDF extraction. Select the Extract button, then Delete Pages After Extracting, then select Extract. This pulls those pages into another new PDF.

Then go back to the original PDF and repeat for each extraction you wish to make.

Organizing Your PDF Extractions

It’s time to start saving your PDF extractions.

Select the tab at the top you wish to rename, and click the X to close it out. You’ll be prompted to save it. Choose Yes, find where you want to save it, give it a name, and select Save.

Do this for each remaining segment you wish to create.

When you’re done you’ll have all your PDF extractions organized, with the original document still intact.

Conclusion:

Today we performed a number of PDF extractions from one large PDF file, using the new Adobe Acrobat interface. The original PDF was kept intact. Yet the information it contained is now easier to access and use in other applications.

As always, I can be your personal accessibility expert. For more detailed insights, tutorials, and in-depth discussions on accessibility and related topics, please check out my YouTube channel: The Accessibility Guy on YouTube.