How to Delete Pages from a PDF (Free, with Page Ranges)

A scan with a blank back side on every sheet. A report with an outdated appendix. A 40-page contract where the client should only see pages 1–12 and the signature page. "Delete these pages" is one of the most common PDF edits there is — and one that Acrobat politely puts behind a subscription. Here's the free route.

How to delete pages — step by step

🔒 pdfty.com/en/tools/remove-pages

The range syntax, precisely

The field takes a comma-separated list where each item is a single page number or a start-end range (inclusive on both ends):

• 3 — delete page 3
• 3,7 — delete pages 3 and 7
• 3-6 — delete pages 3, 4, 5 and 6
• 1,3-5,12 — delete page 1, pages 3–5, and page 12

Three details worth knowing:

• Counting starts at 1 and matches the page position in the file — which is not always the number printed on the page (a title page shifts everything). Check the page's position in your viewer's sidebar, not the printed number.
• Out-of-range numbers are ignored, not errors — asking to delete page 99 of a 10-page file just does nothing for that entry.
• You can't delete every page. The tool refuses rather than handing you an empty PDF.

Delete vs. Split vs. Extract: picking the right tool

The same end state — "a PDF with only the pages I want" — can be reached from two directions, and the right direction depends on which list is shorter:

There's no separate "extract pages" tool — extracting is deleting the rest, or splitting. To get pages 1–12 and the signature page out of a 40-page contract, either remove everything else in one go (13-39 in this tool), or run Split, which hands you a ZIP with every page as a separate PDF, and keep the files you need. Remove-pages keeps the result as one document; Split gives you loose pages.

And if the pages you need live in different files, the order is split first, then combine — the combining half is covered in how to merge a PDF without Adobe.

Free local alternatives

Mac Preview: open the PDF, show the thumbnail sidebar, select pages, press Delete, save. Genuinely good — visual, local, free. Its weakness is bulk: deleting "every even page" from a 60-page scan means 30 careful clicks.

Chrome / Edge / Firefox print trick: open the PDF in the browser, print to "Save as PDF", and type the pages you want to keep in the page-range box. Works everywhere, but re-renders the file — links and bookmarks are lost and file size can change.

CLI (qpdf, free): qpdf in.pdf --pages . 1-2,6-z -- out.pdf keeps pages 1–2 and 6 to the end. Lossless and scriptable; the inverted "name what you keep" logic takes a minute to get used to.

Windows built-ins: nothing — no Preview equivalent. The browser trick or an online tool is the practical path.

Practical gotchas

• Printed page numbers don't renumber. If the document has page numbers baked into the content, deleting page 3 leaves a jump from "2" to "4". Fix by stamping fresh numbers with Page numbers — ideally the original had none, or the old ones will double up.
• Bookmarks and internal links that pointed at deleted pages can end up pointing at the wrong place. Skim the result if the document has a clickable table of contents.
• File size doesn't always drop proportionally. Pages often share embedded fonts and images; deleting 5 of 20 pages may shave less than 25%. If size is the actual goal, that's a different guide.
• Scans with blank backs: for a scan where every second page is blank, Delete blank pages detects and drops them automatically — faster than typing 2,4,6,8,….
• Locked files need the password and a pass through Unlock first.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly do I type to delete pages 5 through 9 and page 14?

5-9,14 — ranges with a hyphen, items separated by commas, spaces optional. Everything listed is removed; everything else stays.

Does deleting pages reduce quality?

No. The remaining pages are copied through untouched — no re-rendering, no re-compression. Fonts, images and vector content stay exactly as they were.

Can I preview which pages I'm deleting?

Not inside the tool — there's no thumbnail picker yet, just the range field. Open the PDF in any viewer side by side, note the positions in the sidebar, then type them. The original file on your disk is never modified, so a mistake costs one retry.

How do I extract pages instead of deleting them?

Two routes: delete the complement here (keep pages 1–12 of 40 by removing 13-40), which leaves one clean document — or use Split to burst the file into single-page PDFs and keep the ones you want, re-combining them with Merge if needed.

Can I remove all blank pages automatically?

Yes — that's a dedicated tool: Delete blank pages. It detects near-empty pages (common in duplex scans) so you don't have to list them manually.

Is the deleted content really gone from the file?

The pages themselves, yes. But document metadata and content on other pages remain — for genuinely sensitive material, follow up with Remove metadata or Redact.

What are the free limits?

20 MB and 50 pages per file, 10 operations a day, no sign-up, no watermark; files auto-delete after 1 hour. Pro ($9/mo) removes the caps.

Can I undo if I delete the wrong pages?

The tool never touches your original file — just upload it again with the corrected list. Nothing is overwritten.