All three jobs are the same operation underneath: take pages from one or more PDFs and write them out in a new order. None of the routes here re-renders a page, so the text stays text and the images stay as sharp as they were. What differs is what happens to the parts of a PDF that are not pages: bookmarks, form fields and links that jump to another page.
Two PDFs added to Merge PDF, every page laid out as a thumbnail to drag into order.
qpdf does all three with one option, --pages. To merge, start from an empty
document and list the files in order:
qpdf --empty --pages a.pdf b.pdf -- merged.pdf
Install it with brew install qpdf on a Mac or apt install qpdf on Debian and
Ubuntu; Windows builds are on the
qpdf releases page. The -- closes the
page list. A four-page and a three-page file came out as one, in order:
qpdf --show-npages merged.pdf
7
What survives a merge
We merged two test files, each with a bookmark per page, a fillable text field
called name, a web link and a link that jumps to its own last page:
| Route | Bookmarks | Form fields | Jump-to-page links | Web links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
qpdf --empty --pages a.pdf b.pdf -- |
Dropped | Kept, both fillable (name, name+1) |
Kept | Kept |
qpdf a.pdf --pages . b.pdf -- |
First file's kept | Kept, both fillable | Kept | Kept |
pdfunite a.pdf b.pdf |
Dropped | Broken: two fields with the same name | Dead | Kept |
| Merge PDF (browser) | Dropped | Broken: boxes only, no form | Dead | Kept |
That is qpdf 12.2.0 and poppler 25.03 on Debian 13, and pdf-lib 1.17.1, which does the work in our page tools. "Boxes only" means the field is still drawn on the page but the document no longer has a form that lists it: pdf.js, the viewer in Firefox, still finds the box on the page, but anything that reads the form itself (a form filler, a script that fills it in) finds no fields. A dead link is still clickable and goes nowhere.
So if the PDFs have a table of contents in the sidebar, a form, or a contents page that links to chapters, use qpdf, and put the file whose bookmarks matter first:
qpdf report.pdf --pages . appendix.pdf -- merged.pdf
The . means "the file before --pages". The output is built on that file, so
it keeps its bookmarks and document settings, and the appendix pages are added
after it.
Split a PDF
--split-pages writes one file per page:
qpdf --split-pages a.pdf page-%d.pdf
page-1.pdf
page-2.pdf
page-3.pdf
page-4.pdf
%d is replaced by the page number. Give it a number to cut every N pages
instead; the file names then carry the page range:
qpdf --split-pages=2 a.pdf part-%d.pdf
part-1-2.pdf
part-3-4.pdf
To take one part out, name the pages you want:
qpdf a.pdf --pages . 1-3 -- part.pdf
Single-page files lose their bookmarks; a form field stays fillable in the
file for the page it sits on. A part made with . keeps every bookmark,
including ones for pages that are no longer in it: those point nowhere. A link
to a page that is not in the part is dead.
poppler's pdfseparate a.pdf page-%d.pdf also writes one file per page, with
the same result.
Split PDF fills in a two-way split to start from, and says how many files it will make.
- Open Split PDF and drop the file in.
- Under Split mode, choose By ranges, Every N pages or Each page.
- For ranges, type one group per output file, separated by commas:
1-3, 4-6, 7-10makes three PDFs. The line under the field says how many it will make. - Press Split PDF. One part downloads as a PDF ending in
-split.pdf; several come as a ZIP with the parts numbered.
Within a group, pages always come out in their original order: 3-1 is read
as 1-3. To change the order, use the next section.
Reorder, delete or keep pages
With qpdf it is the same --pages option, and the page list is the new order.
Commas separate items, z is the last page, and a range can run backwards:
qpdf a.pdf --pages . z-1 -- reversed.pdf # last page first
qpdf a.pdf --pages . 3,1-2,4 -- reordered.pdf # page 3 to the front
qpdf a.pdf --pages . 1,3-z -- no-page-2.pdf # delete page 2
We checked each output page by page: Report 4 | Report 3 | Report 2 | Report 1,
Report 3 | Report 1 | Report 2 | Report 4, and Report 1 | Report 3 | Report 4.
The bookmarks moved with their pages, and the link to the last page still
landed on it. The form field went with page 2 when that page was deleted, which
is what you would expect.
To combine pages from several files in a new order, list each file with its
pages: qpdf --empty --pages a.pdf 1-2 b.pdf 1 a.pdf 3-z -- out.pdf. To
interleave two files page by page (a scan of the fronts and one of the backs),
add --collate:
qpdf --empty --collate --pages a.pdf b.pdf -- collated.pdf
That gave Report 1 | Appendix 1 | Report 2 | Appendix 2 | Report 3 | Appendix 3 | Report 4.
For back sides scanned last page first, pass the second file as b.pdf z-1,
which gave Report 1 | Appendix 3 | Report 2 | Appendix 2 | ….
Select pages, then drag them, rotate them, or delete them, and download the result.
- Open Organize PDF Pages and drop the PDF in. Every page appears as a numbered thumbnail.
- Drag a page by its grip (top right of the thumbnail) to its new place. Click to select a page, Shift-click for a run, Ctrl-click or ⌘-click to add more; dragging a selected page moves the whole selection.
- Use the buttons on a thumbnail, or Rotate and Delete in the toolbar for the selection.
- Press Download PDF. The file is saved with
-organizedadded to its name.
Two tools do one half of this job each: Extract PDF Pages saves only the pages you select (Extract N selected), and Delete PDF Pages saves everything except them (Delete N & download).
On a Mac: Preview
Preview does all of this through its sidebar, without a terminal. Choose View › Thumbnails, then drag thumbnails to reorder them, select pages and press Delete to remove them, and drag a PDF from the Finder into the sidebar to add all of its pages. To merge, open both files and drag pages from one sidebar into the other. Apple's steps are in Combine PDFs in Preview and Add, delete or move PDF pages.
Apple's own instructions say changes are saved automatically. Choose File › Duplicate first and work on the copy, or the pages you dragged out are gone from the original. We have not measured what Preview keeps of bookmarks and forms, so check the result if they matter.
Windows has no built-in tool that merges or splits PDFs. qpdf runs there from the release download, and the browser tools work in any browser.
If the PDF is locked
A PDF that asks for a password to open can't be merged or split until the password is removed, by any route here. qpdf takes the password after the file name in the page list:
qpdf --empty --pages locked.pdf --password=secret 1-2 -- out.pdf
Put anywhere else on the line, it was rejected as an invalid password.
A PDF that opens freely but restricts printing or editing is a different case. qpdf merges it as it is and writes an unrestricted file. The browser page tools read it and show its thumbnails, but the pages they write from it come out broken: in our test the text was unreadable. Strip the restrictions first.
