How to Remove Pages from a PDF

Not every page in a PDF belongs there. Blank pages from scanning, outdated appendices, cover sheets you don't need, or confidential pages you need to strip before sharing — there are plenty of reasons to remove pages from a PDF. Here's how to do it quickly and privately.

Remove Pages with PDFably

PDFably's Remove Pages tool gives you a visual interface for selecting exactly which pages to delete. Click a page number to mark it for removal, then generate a clean PDF without those pages.

1. Open the Remove Pages tool
2. Upload your PDF
3. Click on page numbers to mark them for removal (they turn red)
4. Click Remove and download your cleaned-up PDF

The tool creates a completely new PDF from the pages you chose to keep. Your original file is never modified — this is a non-destructive process.

Common Reasons to Remove PDF Pages

Cleaning up scans: Batch scanning often captures blank pages, separator sheets, or the back side of single-sided documents. Removing these pages produces a cleaner, smaller file.

Preparing for sharing: Before sending a document externally, you may need to remove internal-only pages like draft notes, internal pricing, or confidential sections. This is critical for legal, financial, and HR documents.

Reducing file size: Every page adds to the file size. Removing unnecessary pages is the simplest way to shrink a PDF — especially if those pages contain images. For further size reduction, follow up with PDFably's Compress PDF tool.

Customizing materials: Teachers often need to remove certain problems from an exam, marketers may want to pull specific slides from a sales deck, and researchers might extract only relevant sections from a lengthy paper.

Remove vs. Split: Which Tool Do You Need?

If you want to keep most pages and delete a few, use Remove Pages. If you want to extract specific pages into separate files, use Split PDF. Both tools process files in your browser and both are non-destructive — your original PDF stays exactly as it was.

What Happens After Removal

After removing pages, the resulting PDF maintains all formatting, fonts, links, and images from the kept pages. Page numbers within the content won't automatically update (they're part of the page content, not metadata), but the PDF's internal page count will reflect the new total.

You might want to combine the edited document with other files using Merge PDF, or add password protection before sharing the cleaned-up version. If pages ended up in the wrong orientation after editing, Rotate PDF can fix that.