How to Delete Pages from a PDF Online for Free

Every PDF user eventually encounters a document with pages they do not need — cover sheets, blank pages, error pages, or sections intended for someone else. Removing those pages should be simple. Here is how to do it in your browser in seconds, for free.

Common Reasons to Remove PDF Pages

• Removing blank or empty pages from a scanned document
• Deleting a cover sheet before sharing internally
• Removing confidential sections before sending to a client
• Extracting only relevant pages from a large report
• Removing duplicate pages from a merged document
• Cleaning up a PDF before printing to save paper

How to Specify Pages to Remove

Our tool uses a simple, flexible page specification format:

• Single pages: Type 1, 5, 8 to remove pages 1, 5 and 8
• Page ranges: Type 3-7 to remove pages 3 through 7
• Combined: Type 1, 5-8, 12 to remove pages 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 12

A live preview shows exactly how many pages will be removed and how many will remain before you proceed.

What Happens to the Remaining Pages?

The page numbering in the output PDF adjusts automatically. If you remove pages 2 and 3 from a 10-page document, the result is an 8-page PDF where what was page 4 is now page 2. The internal content, formatting and quality of the remaining pages is completely unchanged.

Identifying Pages to Remove in Long Documents

For long documents, figuring out exactly which page numbers to remove can be the trickiest part of the process — especially when the issue is blank pages from scanning, which might not be obvious without checking each page. Before specifying page numbers, it's worth opening the PDF in a regular viewer and using its thumbnail or page-overview mode to scan through quickly, noting down the page numbers of anything that needs removing. For scanned documents specifically, blank pages often appear at predictable intervals if the scanning process consistently produced extra blank backs — for example, every even-numbered page being blank in a document scanned from single-sided originals, which would be specified as a range covering all even pages individually if needed, or identified by checking a sample of even pages to confirm the pattern before removing all of them.

Difference Between Removing Pages and Splitting a PDF

Removing pages deletes them permanently from the document. Splitting a PDF extracts specific pages into a separate document while keeping the original intact. If you want to keep the extracted pages as their own document, use our PDF Splitter instead. If you simply want to delete unwanted pages from the main document, use Remove Pages.

Removing Pages Before Sharing Sensitive Documents

A common and important use of this tool is preparing a document for external sharing by removing internal-only content — pricing notes, internal comments, draft sections not meant for a client, or pages containing information relevant only to your team. Before sharing, it's worth reviewing the entire remaining document (not just the pages you removed) to check that nothing references the removed content in a way that would be confusing to an external reader — for example, a "see Appendix C" reference where Appendix C has just been removed. While this tool cleanly removes the specified pages, any textual cross-references elsewhere in the document are a separate thing to check manually.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Open the Remove PDF Pages tool
2. Upload your PDF (up to 25MB)
3. The tool shows the total page count
4. Type the page numbers or ranges you want to remove
5. Check the live preview showing remaining page count
6. Click Remove Pages and download your updated PDF

Is It Possible to Remove All Pages?

No — the tool prevents you from removing all pages, as a PDF must contain at least one page. If you enter page numbers that would remove everything, you will see an error message before any changes are made.

After Removing Pages

Once unwanted pages are removed, it's a good time to check whether other adjustments are needed for the resulting document — if the remaining pages include some that are sideways due to how the original was scanned, our Rotate PDF tool can fix orientation. If the document's page numbers (if printed as content) no longer match the new page count, Add Page Numbers can apply fresh numbering reflecting the updated sequence.