Delete pages from a PDF

Two ways to choose the pages to remove

Click the thumbnails

See every page, click the ones to drop. Best when you are removing blank scans or duplicates and need to look at what you are deleting.

Type the page numbers

Enter a list like 1, 4-6, 9 when you already know what goes. Far quicker than scrolling through a long document.

Your original file is never modified

Deleting pages here produces a new PDF and leaves the file on your disk exactly as it was. If you cut the wrong page, the fix is to start again with the original — nothing has been overwritten and there is nothing to recover.

The pages you keep are copied across as they are, so text stays selectable and images keep their resolution. The removed pages are genuinely gone from the new file rather than hidden, so nobody downstream can recover their content.

What to delete from a typical document

Blank pages from scanning

Duplex scanners produce a blank for every single-sided sheet in the stack.

Cover and separator sheets

Fax cover pages and barcode separators that meant something during scanning and nothing afterwards.

Duplicate pages

The same page picked up twice by a sheet feeder, which is easiest to spot in the thumbnail view.

Sections meant for someone else

Trim a combined statement or report down to the part a particular recipient should see.

Adverts and filler

Strip the pages you do not want to print from a downloaded manual or brochure.

Does removing pages make the file smaller?

Usually, but not always by as much as you would expect. Deleting a page removes its content, though shared resources such as embedded fonts and repeated background images stay in the file if any remaining page still uses them.

If size is the real goal, delete the pages first and then run the result through the PDF compressor — that combination gets you far further than either step alone.