Delete PDF Pages

Delete PDF pages: click a page to remove it, and only the remaining pages are saved as a new PDF

Deleting PDF pages means taking out the pages you do not need and bundling the rest into a new PDF. This tool shows a thumbnail of every page, and clicking a page removes it from the result. Blank pages and identical pages are found by measuring the pixels of the thumbnails and are marked for you, and you can drag pages to change their order. The page map above joins each original page to its place in the new PDF with a line.

For example, when you open the sample PDF (12 pages, 229 KB), it finds and removes the scanned blank back side (page 3), the page with nothing on it (page 11) and page 7, which is identical to page 6, so the remaining 9 pages can be saved as a 175 KB PDF. Pages are copied from the original as they are, so text does not turn into pictures, and the sentences, images and notes of a removed page do not go into the output file. The PDF you choose is not sent to a server; it is processed inside the browser you are using.

When to remove pages

• Cleaning up a scanned bundle: double-sided scanning slips in empty back sides as blank pages, and a sheet fed in twice can produce the same page twice in a row. The [Blank pages] and [Identical pages] buttons under [Find and remove] take them out in one step.
• Taking out pages with personal data before you share a file: in an application bundle, you remove pages the other side does not need, such as a personal data consent form, and send the rest. The tool copies only the remaining pages into a new document, so the sentences, images and notes of a removed page do not end up in the output file. Fonts shared by several pages are an exception, described under "Is a removed page really gone from the output file?" below.
• Meeting a page count or file size limit: remove pages nobody asked for, such as a cover, advertisements or an appendix, to match the required page count. Removing photo or scan pages also makes the file smaller, and the saved size appears in the result strip before you save.
• Putting scrambled pages back in order: drag a page that was scanned in the wrong place back to where it belongs, then save the same file.

How to use it

1. Drop a PDF on the workspace or press [Choose PDF]. If it is your first time, press [Open sample PDF] to open a 12-page mock application bundle.
2. Click the pages you want to remove on the page board. A removed page gets a ✕ mark and diagonal stripes, and clicking it again brings it back. If you know the page numbers, you can also type them into the [Pages to remove] field, as in 3, 7-9.
3. Once all pages have been checked, [Find and remove] shows how many blank and identical pages there are. One press removes them all, and one more press brings them back.
4. For a page whose content you need to check, press the magnifier at the top right of its thumbnail to see it large. You can also press [Remove this page] inside the large view.
5. To change the order, drag a thumbnail to the place you want. On a phone, press and hold the thumbnail first, then drag.
6. Check the number of pages left and the saved size in the result strip, then press [Save PDF]. If you make a mistake, step back one change at a time with [Undo] or Ctrl + Z (⌘ + Z on a Mac).

How to read the page map and the page board

In the page map in the result strip, the top row of bars is the pages of the original, and the bottom row is the pages of the PDF to be saved. Each line joins an original page to the place it takes in the new PDF. When you remove a page, its bar changes to the accent color and its line breaks, and the pages after it move forward. When you change the order, the lines cross each other.

• Bar height shows how much text or imagery the page holds (the "ink" ratio described below). A blank page has an almost flat bar, so it stands out even in a long document. Pages that have not been checked yet show as pale bars.
• Pointing at or clicking a bar shows where the page is going, as in "Original page 7 → new page 6", and the page board scrolls to that page.
• The number below a thumbnail is the original page number, and the small text beside it is the printed page number set in the document. The "→ 6" on the right shows what number the page will have in the saved PDF.
• Tags: "Blank" and "Same as page 6" mark pages that the [Find and remove] buttons can take out, while the dotted "Nearly blank" tag marks pages that are only flagged.
• Keyboard: use the arrow keys to move around the page board, and Space or Enter to remove or restore a page. Alt + arrow keys move the page forward or back, and clicking another page while holding Shift toggles everything in between. In the large view, ← and → turn to the previous or next page.

How blank and identical pages are found

When a PDF is opened, the tool draws every page once as a thumbnail 240 px wide and measures an "ink" ratio for each page from its pixels. It leaves out the outer 4% of each edge, where scanner shadows and page numbers often sit, and converts the remaining pixels to gray brightness (Y = 0.299R + 0.587G + 0.114B from ITU-R BT.601). The median of those values is taken as the paper color, and the share of pixels whose brightness differs from the paper color by more than 48 (on a 0 to 255 scale) is the ink. Because the paper color is set separately for each page, yellowed scans and colored paper are measured in the same way.

There is a reason nearly blank pages are not removed automatically. A divider with only a chapter title, or a page that just says "Appendix", also has about 0.1% ink, so by pixels alone it cannot be told apart from a page that says "This page intentionally left blank." That is why such pages are only marked, and you check them with the magnifier and remove them yourself.

Identical pages have the same page size and not a single pixel that differs in the 240 px wide thumbnail. If a page matches an earlier one, the later page gets a "Same as page N" tag, and the [Identical pages] button removes only the later page. This finds pages whose picture is exactly the same, such as a page that appears twice because the same file was inserted twice. A page scanned twice from the same sheet of paper almost always differs in position or specks, so it usually is not found. Pages that differ only in the page number are treated as different pages.

How to write the pages to remove

In the [Pages to remove] field, write original page numbers separated by commas or spaces. 3-8 includes both page 3 and page 8, 9- means page 9 to the last page, and -3 means page 1 to page 3. A tilde (3~8) or a long dash can be used in place of the hyphen, and full-width digits are accepted too. What you type is applied to the page board after 0.35 seconds, and what you click on the page board is written back into this field as text.

If you write a page that does not exist in the document, such as 0 or 13, a range written backwards such as 6-4, or a value that is not a whole number such as 2.5, the page board is left unchanged, the reason is shown under the field, and the save button stays blocked until you fix it. If you list every page, no page would be left, so it cannot be saved.

Changing the page order

Drag a thumbnail on the page board and drop it between other thumbnails to move it there. A vertical bar in the accent color shows where it will land, and dragging to the top or bottom edge of the board scrolls it automatically. The PDF is saved in the order shown on the page board, and for a page that has been reordered, "→ new number" is shown in bold.

Even after you change the order, the [Pages to remove] field and the numbers below the thumbnails remain the original page numbers. So even after moving page 7 to the very front, you still type 7 to remove it. Pressing [Original order] puts the order back to the start and leaves the removed pages as they are.

Is a removed page really gone from the output file?

There are two ways to delete a page from a PDF: detach the page from the page list of the original file, or copy only the pages you keep into a new document. If you only detach it from the page list, the page no longer shows on screen, but depending on the program, the text and image objects of the removed page can stay inside the file. When we tried it with pdf-lib, the library this tool uses, by detaching page 5 (the personal data consent) of the sample PDF from the page list only and saving, the signature image of that page was still in the file. That is why this tool copies only the pages you keep into a new document.

Copying needs care too. In a document where several pages share one list of images and fonts (the PDF Resources), copying even one page brings the whole list with it, and images that existed only on the removed pages can end up in the result (under ISO 32000-1 7.7.3.3 Table 30 and 7.7.3.4, a page may also inherit Resources from a higher level). Before copying, this tool swaps in a list that keeps only the names that actually appear in the content of the remaining pages. If forms (grouped drawings), patterns, transparency masks or annotation appearances inside a page have lists of their own, those lists are reduced in the same way. We tested this with a PDF made by LibreOffice, where every page and the transparency effects share a single list, and confirmed that the images of the removed pages do not remain in the result. Links and note replies that point to removed pages are detached, and layers (optional content) are carried over only if the remaining pages use them. The original file is not changed.

One exception is fonts. A font shared by several pages is carried over as a whole font, so the shapes of characters used only on the removed pages, and the character list (which characters the font contains), can remain inside the fonts of the output file. In the sample PDF, removing page 5 still leaves a few characters used only on that page in the font. The sentences, that is, the order and positions of the characters, do not remain, but for a document where even the character list must not remain, this tool alone is not enough.

What stays in the result and what is dropped

• Kept: the text, images and shapes of the pages you keep, page size and rotation, links to web addresses, and annotations such as highlights and notes. Text stays text, so you can still search and copy it.
• Dropped: bookmarks (the document outline), links that jump to another page in the document such as table of contents links, printed page number settings, document properties (title, author), the tag structure for screen readers, and actions that run when a page is opened. Bookmarks and links inside the document can point to removed pages, so they are detached together. Numbers printed inside a page are part of the page content, like a picture, so they do not change.
• PDFs that will not open: password-protected or edit-restricted PDFs, and PDFs with form fields or signature fields. Removing pages from a form PDF can make the entries disappear. If the form is finished, choose Print in a PDF viewer and use "Save as PDF" to make a copy that has the entries in the page content.

What the saved size depends on

The amount a file shrinks when you remove pages is the size of the material that existed only on those pages. In the sample PDF (229 KB), removing just the scanned blank back side (page 3) gives 178 KB. The page looks empty, but it holds a photo of the paper. By contrast, removing only the page with nothing drawn on it (page 11) gives 223 KB, almost the same as when the pages are bundled again with none removed (224 KB). Fonts shared by several pages stay in the file as long as one page that uses them remains.

The re-bundled file has its structure tidied again, so its size can differ slightly from the original. For files of 30 MB or less, a result is built in advance every time the pages change and the saved size is shown in the result strip; for larger files, the size is measured when you press [Save PDF]. If removing pages does not shrink the file enough, lower the photo quality with a PDF compressor.

Common mistakes

• Typing the printed number: in the [Pages to remove] field, write the bold original number below the thumbnail, not the number printed inside the page. In a document whose cover and contents are numbered i, ii, printed page 1 may be original page 3.
• Typing the new number after reordering: the numbers in the field are always original numbers. To see which page a page will be in the new PDF, look at the "→" number to the right of the thumbnail.
• Removing nearly blank pages without checking: a divider with only a chapter title is also shown as nearly blank. Look at it with the magnifier before you decide.
• Believing the [Identical pages] button finds everything: pages scanned twice from the same paper differ in at least some pixels and are usually not found. Check at the end that the page count is right.
• Changing pages after saving: a file you have already downloaded does not change. Save again after making changes.

Limits and cautions

• One PDF at a time can be opened, up to 100 MB and 1,000 pages.
• It does not erase text or images inside a page. It removes whole pages only; for rotating pages, shrinking file size or splitting, use a PDF page rotator, a PDF compressor or a PDF splitter.
• Telling blank pages and identical pages apart is an estimate made from the pixels of a 240 px thumbnail. A page with only very faint pencil writing or a small stamp may look blank, so zoom in and check before removing.
• Some PDFs cannot have previews drawn. In that case blank and identical pages are not found, but choosing pages by number still lets you remove them and save.
• A scanned document with many pages takes time to draw all thumbnails and uses a lot of browser memory. This tool was tested in Chrome, and the processing speed and memory use in other browsers were not measured.

Date checked The standard and help sources and the sample figures were checked on 2026-10-21.

Sources

• 01ISO 32000-1:2008 Document management — Portable document format (public copy by Adobe)7.7.3.3 Page objects (Table 30 Resources, inheritable), 7.7.3.4 Inheritance of page attributes, 12.3.3 Document outline (bookmarks), 12.4.2 Page labels (printed page numbers), 12.5.6.5 Link annotations
• 02pdf-lib API — PDFDocumentA library that builds a new PDF by copying pages into another document. This tool builds files with version 1.17.1 (MIT license)
• 03pdf.js 3.11.174 — src/display/api.jsgetPageLabels (printed page numbers) and render (thumbnails and large view). The thumbnails used to tell blank and identical pages apart are also drawn by this engine (Apache-2.0 license)
• 04ITU-R BT.601-7 — Studio encoding parameters of digital televisionLuma signal Y = 0.299R + 0.587G + 0.114B. Used to convert thumbnail pixels to gray brightness

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