Removing pages, properly
The pages you name are removed and a new document is built from what remains.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Some tools hide pages rather than removing them, leaving the content in the file where anyone who opens it in the right software can recover it. Here a genuinely new document is assembled from the surviving pages only — the removed content is absent, not concealed.
If you are deleting pages because they contain something that should not be shared, that is the behaviour you need.
How to write the selection
Commas separate individual pages. Hyphens describe ranges.
1, 4, 12-14
That removes page one, page four, and pages twelve through fourteen. Everything else is kept, in its original order.
Two descriptions of the same operation. Pick whichever needs less typing:
- Delete names what goes. Right for a cover sheet, a duplicate, three blank pages at the end of a scan.
- Extract names what stays. Right for pulling a handful of pages out of a long report.
Nothing is re-processed
The surviving pages are copied into the new document as they are. Images are not re-encoded, text is not rasterised, and no compression is applied.
The result is that page quality is untouched — and that the file may not shrink as much as the page count suggests, because PDFs frequently share embedded fonts and other resources across the whole document.
Your original is safe
The file on your disk is read into memory and left exactly as it was. The result is a new file.
Nothing is transmitted at any point: the Uploaded readout beside the result measures this page’s own outbound network calls directly, and reads 0 B on a successful run.
Questions
- How do I remove a single page from a PDF?
- Add the file and type that page number. Everything else is kept, and you get a new document with that one page gone. Your original file is not modified.
- How do I write the selection?
- Commas for individual pages, hyphens for ranges. "1, 4, 12-14" removes page one, page four, and pages twelve through fourteen.
- Should I delete or extract instead?
- Whichever is less typing. Deleting names the pages to remove — right for dropping a cover sheet and a couple of blanks. Extracting names the pages to keep — right for pulling three pages out of two hundred.
- Are the deleted pages really gone?
- Yes. A new document is built from the remaining pages only, so the removed content is not hidden or merely marked invisible — it is absent from the file. This is worth knowing if you are removing pages for confidentiality reasons rather than tidiness.
- Does it reduce the file size?
- Usually, though not proportionally. PDFs often share resources such as embedded fonts across pages, and those stay with the pages that still need them.
- Is my document uploaded?
- No. The work runs in this browser tab with pdf-lib. The Uploaded readout beside the result measures the page's own outbound network traffic, so a successful run reads 0 B.
- Will there be a watermark?
- No. Nothing is added to the remaining pages and nothing is paywalled.
- Does deleting pages reduce quality?
- No. The surviving pages are copied as they are, without re-compression. Images are not re-encoded and text is not rasterised.
- Are password-protected PDFs supported?
- Documents that only restrict editing will usually work. Documents that need a password to open cannot be read without it. Remove the password in your PDF reader first.
- Is there a page limit?
- None imposed. Your device's memory is the only ceiling.