---
name: "pdfseparate"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "poppler"
version: "26.10.0-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pdfseparate"
---

# pdfseparate(1)

Portable Document Format (PDF) page extractor

## NAME

pdfseparate - Portable Document Format (PDF) page extractor

## SYNOPSIS

**pdfseparate** \[options\] *PDF-file PDF-page-pattern*

## DESCRIPTION

**pdfseparate** extract single pages from a Portable Document Format (PDF).

pdfseparate reads the PDF file *PDF-file*, extracts one or more pages, and writes one PDF file for each page to *PDF-page-pattern.*

PDF-page-pattern should contain **%d** (or any variant respecting printf format), since %d is replaced by the page number.

- The PDF-file should not be encrypted.

  ## OPTIONS

- **-f** *number*

  Specifies the first page to extract. If -f is omitted, extraction starts with page 1.

- **-l** *number*

  Specifies the last page to extract. If -l is omitted, extraction ends with the last page.

- **-v**

  Print copyright and version information.

- **-h**

  Print usage information. (**-help** and **--help** are equivalent.)

## EXAMPLE

pdfseparate sample.pdf sample-%d.pdf

- extracts all pages from sample.pdf, if i.e. sample.pdf has 3 pages, it produces

  - sample-1.pdf, sample-2.pdf, sample-3.pdf

  ## AUTHOR

The pdfseparate software and documentation are copyright 1996-2004 Glyph & Cog, LLC and copyright 2005-2011 The Poppler Developers - http://poppler.freedesktop.org

## SEE ALSO

[**pdfdetach**(1)](/pdfdetach/1.md), [**pdffonts**(1)](/pdffonts/1.md), [**pdfimages**(1)](/pdfimages/1.md), [**pdfinfo**(1)](/pdfinfo/1.md), [**pdftocairo**(1)](/pdftocairo/1.md), [**pdftohtml**(1)](/pdftohtml/1.md), [**pdftoppm**(1)](/pdftoppm/1.md), [**pdftops**(1)](/pdftops/1.md), [**pdftotext**(1)](/pdftotext/1.md) [**pdfsig**(1)](/pdfsig/1.md), [**pdfunite**(1)](/pdfunite/1.md)