Splitting a 200-page report into chapters

Updated 15 September 20263 min readUses Split

A long report is easier to review one chapter at a time: attachments stay small, and each reader gets only the part they own. One pass through Split gives you every chapter as its own file.

Find the page ranges first

The page numbers printed in a report rarely match the page numbers of the PDF, because the cover and contents come first. Go to the first page of each chapter and note the number your PDF viewer shows. A chapter that starts on printed page 18 might be page 23 of the file.

Name the files so they sort

The file naming pattern takes {n} for the part number, so report-{n}.pdf gives report-1.pdf, report-2.pdf and so on. Put the report name first, so the chapters stay together in a downloads folder.

The three steps

1Open Split and pick the reportThe pages show as a grid, so you can check where each chapter begins.
2Enter one range per chapterChoose Custom ranges and type the ranges separated by commas, for example 1-22, 23-61, 62-118, 119-200.
3Name the files and splitSet the file naming, for example annual-report-{n}.pdf, then split the PDF.

Then what

To send just one chapter, Extract pages pulls the pages you select into a new PDF. For an email with a size limit, choose Under a size limit in Split instead of ranges, or run each chapter through Compress.

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