A few days ago, I came across a large PDF ebook of the Linux From Scratch project. The book contains a lot of instructions and commands which are difficult to understand and execute in one go so I thought it would be a good idea to split the book chapters into separate PDFs. This would allow for going back and forth in multiple chapters simultaneously. In general, splitting a PDF file, although tedious, can be a routine requirement for anyone.

I was searching for tools to split my PDF file and came across a lot of online tools. However, my excessive concern for security and privacy means that I am not in favour of uploading my file on some random online PDF splitter. That’s when I found this simple process to split PDF files using Google’s Chrome browser. The process is very simple as described below:

1. Navigate to the folder where the PDF file is saved, right-click and “open with Google Chrome”

OR

Open Chrome and go to File -> Open File… ->

2. Click on “Print” in the top right-hand corner as shown below:

3. In the print window,
a. Select destination: “Save as PDF”
b. Select pages as customized and enter the range of pages that are to be included in the new PDF.
c. Select “Open PDF in preview” to preview your edited PDF file.

NOTE: Groups of pages can be entered as comma-separated-values to split the PDF in nonconsecutive manner.

4. If you are satisfied with the preview, save the document with an appropriate name.

5. Verify that the new PDF is as per your requirements.

This is probably the easiest method to split a PDF file.