Split by Equal Page Count

Overview

Split by Equal Page Count divides the current PDF into multiple output files, each containing the same number of pages. This is the simplest way to split a document into evenly-sized parts. If the total number of pages is not evenly divisible, the last output file will contain fewer pages.

How to use

  1. Open the PDF you want to split.
  2. Go to Plug-Ins > Split > Split by Equal Page Count.
  3. Enter the number of pages each output file should contain.
  4. Set the output folder and file pattern, then click OK.

Options

OptionDescription
Pages per file The number of pages each output file should contain. Must be at least 1. For example, setting this to 1 extracts every page as an individual PDF; setting it to 5 creates files of 5 pages each.
Output folder The folder where output files are saved. Click Browse to choose a folder.
File pattern Controls the output filename. Use {n} for the 1-based file index (zero-padded to 3 digits). Default is output_{n}.
Open outputs after creation Opens each generated file in Acrobat after the operation completes.
Reduce file size Applies garbage collection and linearization to output files, resulting in smaller file sizes. Useful when the source PDF contains unused objects.
Security... Opens the Output Security Settings dialog to apply password protection and permission restrictions to the output files.
Save Profile / Load Profile Save the current dialog settings as a .tsp profile file, or load a previously saved profile. Profiles can be used for command-line automation.

Command-line automation

All split operations (not just this one) support command-line execution via environment variables. Set the following before launching Acrobat:

VariableDescription
TOCBUILDER_SPLIT_PROFILE Path to a .tsp profile file saved from any split dialog.
TOCBUILDER_INPUT_FILE Path to the PDF file to process.
TOCBUILDER_INPUT_FOLDER Path to a folder of PDFs to process (all .pdf files will be processed sequentially). Use this instead of TOCBUILDER_INPUT_FILE for batch mode.
TOCBUILDER_OUTPUT_FOLDER Override the output folder from the profile (optional).
TOCBUILDER_LOG_FILE Path to a log file for tracking operations and errors (optional).

File naming tokens

The file pattern field supports the following tokens:

TokenDescription
{n}File index (zero-padded to 3 digits)
{page}First page number of the section
{pages}Page range (e.g. "1-5")
{label}Page label of the first page
{tag}Context-specific tag value
{filename}Source document filename (without extension)
{title}Document title metadata
{author}Document author metadata
{subject}Document subject metadata
{date}Today's date (YYYY-MM-DD)
{hour}Current hour (00-23)
{minute}Current minute (00-59)
{second}Current second (00-59)
{username}Windows username
{computername}Windows computer name
{alpha}Alphabetic label (A, B, ... Z, AA, AB...)
{text:L,B,R,T}Text from a rectangle on the first page
{match:PATTERN}First regex match from the first page

Tip

To extract every page as a separate file, set Pages per file to 1.

Note

If the total page count is not evenly divisible by the pages-per-file value, the last output file will contain the remaining pages. For example, splitting a 10-page document with 3 pages per file produces files of 3, 3, 3, and 1 page(s).

See also