How can I extract a page range / a part of a PDF?

pdftk is a useful multi-platform tool for the job (pdftk homepage).

pdftk full-pdf.pdf cat 12-15 output outfile_p12-15.pdf

you pass the filename of the main pdf, then you tell it to only include certain pages (12-15 in this example) and output it to a new file.

Installation instructions:

To install the snap version, which is an unofficial repackaging of an old version of PDFtk (repackaged by Scott Moser), visit this link or run:

sudo snap install pdftk

Alternatively, you can install an open source port of PDFtk to Java by Marc Vinyals, by running:

sudo apt install pdftk-java

Another alternative is PDFtk Server, available from the website: https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/ . This version is free of charge for personal use, but it is not open source.

Very simple. Use the default PDF reader, select "Print To File" and that's it!

Then:

Note that with this way, the text will no more be searchable, instead all texts are converted to images: this is how "Print" works.

QPDF is great. Use it this way to extract pages 1-10 from input.pdf and save it as output.pdf:

qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-10 -- output.pdf

This preserves all metadata associated with that file.

From the manual:

If you wanted pages 1 through 5 from infile.pdf but you wanted the rest of the metadata to be dropped, you could instead run

qpdf --empty --pages infile.pdf 1-5 -- outfile.pdf

You can install it by invoking:

sudo apt-get install qpdf

It is a great tool for PDF manipulation. It's very fast and has very few dependencies. "It can encrypt and linearize files, expose the internals of a PDF file, and do many other operations useful to end users and PDF developers."

QPDF's code repository on GitHub.

Page range - Nautilus script

Overview

I created a slightly more advanced script based on the tutorial @ThiagoPonte linked to. Its key features are

• that it's GUI based,
• compatible with spaces in file names,
• and based on three different backends that are capable of preserving all attributes of the original file

Screenshot

Code

#!/bin/bash
#
# TITLE:        PDFextract
#
# AUTHOR:       (c) 2013-2015 Glutanimate (https://github.com/Glutanimate)
#
# VERSION:      0.2
#
# LICENSE:      GNU GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
# 
# OVERVIEW:     PDFextract is a simple PDF extraction script based on Ghostscript/qpdf/cpdf.
#               It provides a simple way to extract a page range from a PDF document and is meant
#               to be used as a file manager script/addon (e.g. Nautilus script).
#
# FEATURES:     - simple GUI based on YAD, an advanced Zenity fork.
#               - preserves _all_ attributes of your original PDF file and does not compress 
#                 embedded images further than they are.      
#               - can choose from three different backends: ghostscript, qpdf, cpdf
#
# DEPENDENCIES: ghostscript/qpdf/cpdf poppler-utils yad libnotify-bin
#                         
#               You need to install at least one of the three backends supported by this script.
#
#               - ghostscript, qpdf, poppler-utils, and libnotify-bin are available via 
#                 the standard Ubuntu repositories
#               - cpdf is a commercial CLI PDF toolkit that is free for personal use.
#                 It can be downloaded here: https://github.com/coherentgraphics/cpdf-binaries
#               - yad can be installed from the webupd8 PPA with the following command:
#                 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager && apt-get update && apt-get install yad
#
# NOTES:        Here is a quick comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of each backend:
#
#                               speed     metadata preservation     content preservation        license
#               ghostscript:     --               ++                         ++               open-source
#               cpdf:             -               ++                         ++               proprietary
#               qpdf:            ++                +                         ++               open-source
#
#               Results might vary depending on the document and the version of the tool in question.
#
# INSTALLATION: https://askubuntu.com/a/236415
#
# This script was inspired by Kurt Pfeifle's PDF extraction script 
# (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tech-tip-extract-pages-pdf)
#
# Originally posted on askubuntu
# (https://askubuntu.com/a/282453)

# Variables

DOCUMENT="$1"
BACKENDSELECTION="^qpdf!ghostscript!cpdf"

# Functions

check_input(){
  if [[ -z "$1" ]]; then
    notify "Error: No input file selected."
    exit 1
  elif [[ ! "$(file -ib "$1")" == *application/pdf* ]]; then
    notify "Error: Not a valid PDF file."
    exit 1
  fi
}

check_deps () {
  for i in "$@"; do
    type "$i" > /dev/null 2>&1 
    if [[ "$?" != "0" ]]; then
      MissingDeps+="$i"
    fi
  done
}

ghostscriptextract(){
  gs -dFirstPage="$STARTPAGE "-dLastPage="$STOPPAGE" -sOutputFile="$OUTFILE" -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dPDFSETTING=/default -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompressFonts=true -c \
  ".setpdfwrite << /EncodeColorImages true /DownsampleMonoImages false /SubsetFonts true /ASCII85EncodePages false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /ColorConversionStrategy \
  /LeaveColorUnchanged /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.5 /ColorACSImageDict << /VSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /HSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /QFactor 0.4 /Blend 1 >> /GrayACSImageDict \
  << /VSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /HSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /QFactor 0.4 /Blend 1 >> /PreserveOverprintSettings false /MonoImageResolution 300 /MonoImageFilter /FlateEncode \
  /GrayImageResolution 300 /LockDistillerParams false /EncodeGrayImages true /MaxSubsetPCT 100 /GrayImageDict << /VSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /HSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /QFactor \
  0.4 /Blend 1 >> /ColorImageFilter /FlateEncode /EmbedAllFonts true /UCRandBGInfo /Remove /AutoRotatePages /PageByPage /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDict << \
  /VSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /HSamples [ 1 1 1 1 ] /QFactor 0.4 /Blend 1 >> /CompatibilityLevel 1.7 /EncodeMonoImages true /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.5 \
  /AutoFilterGrayImages false /GrayImageFilter /FlateEncode /DownsampleGrayImages false /AutoFilterColorImages false /DownsampleColorImages false /CompressPages true \
  /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.5 /PreserveHalftoneInfo false >> setdistillerparams" -f "$DOCUMENT"
}

cpdfextract(){
  cpdf "$DOCUMENT" "$STARTPAGE-$STOPPAGE" -o "$OUTFILE"
}

qpdfextract(){
  qpdf --linearize "$DOCUMENT" --pages "$DOCUMENT" "$STARTPAGE-$STOPPAGE" -- "$OUTFILE"
  echo "$OUTFILE"
  return 0 # even benign qpdf warnings produce error codes, so we suppress them
}

notify(){
  echo "$1"
  notify-send -i application-pdf "PDFextract" "$1"
}

dialog_warning(){
  echo "$1"
  yad --center --image dialog-warning \
  --title "PDFExtract Warning" \
  --text "$1" \
  --button="Try again:0" \
  --button="Exit:1"

  [[ "$?" != "0" ]] && exit 0
}

dialog_settings(){
  PAGECOUNT=$(pdfinfo "$DOCUMENT" | grep Pages | sed 's/[^0-9]*//') #determine page count

  SETTINGS=($(\
      yad --form --width 300 --center \
          --window-icon application-pdf --image application-pdf \
          --separator=" " --title="PDFextract"\
          --text "Please choose the page range and backend"\
          --field="Start:NUM" 1[!1..$PAGECOUNT[!1]] --field="End:NUM" $PAGECOUNT[!1..$PAGECOUNT[!1]] \
          --field="Backend":CB "$BACKENDSELECTION" \
          --button="gtk-ok:0" --button="gtk-cancel:1"\
      ))

  SETTINGSRET="$?"

  [[ "$SETTINGSRET" != "0" ]] && exit 1

  STARTPAGE=$(printf %.0f ${SETTINGS[0]}) #round numbers and store array in variables
  STOPPAGE=$(printf %.0f ${SETTINGS[1]})
  BACKEND="${SETTINGS[2]}"
  EXTRACTOR="${BACKEND}extract"

  check_deps "$BACKEND"

  if [[ -n "$MissingDeps" ]]; then
    dialog_warning "Error, missing dependency: $MissingDeps"
    unset MissingDeps
    dialog_settings
    return
  fi

  if [[ "$STARTPAGE" -gt "$STOPPAGE" ]]; then 
    dialog_warning "<b>   Start page higher than stop page.   </b>"
    dialog_settings
    return
  fi

  OUTFILE="${DOCUMENT%.pdf} (p${STARTPAGE}-p${STOPPAGE}).pdf"
}

extract_pages(){
  $EXTRACTOR
  EXTRACTORRET="$?"
  if [[ "$EXTRACTORRET" = "0" ]]; then
    notify "Pages $STARTPAGE to $STOPPAGE succesfully extracted."
  else
    notify "There has been an error. Please check the CLI output."
  fi
}


# Main

check_input "$1"
dialog_settings
extract_pages

Installation

Please follow the generic installation instructions for Nautilus scripts. Make sure to read the script header carefully as it will help to clarify the installation and usage of the script.

Partial pages - PDF Arranger

Overview

PDF Arranger is a small python-gtk application, which helps the user to merge or split pdf documents and rotate, crop and rearrange their pages using an interactive and intuitive graphical interface. It is a frontend for python-pyPdf.

Installation

sudo apt-get install pdfshuffler

Usage

PDF Arranger can crop and delete single PDF pages. You can use it to extract a page range from a document or even partial pages using the cropping function:

Page elements - Inkscape

Overview

Inkscape is a very powerful open-source vector graphics editor. It supports a wide range of different formats, including PDF files. You can use it to extract, modify and save page elements from a PDF file.

Installation

sudo apt-get install inkscape

Usage

1.) Open the PDF file of your choice with Inkscape. An import dialog will appear. Choose the page you want to extract elements from. Leave the other settings as they are:

2.) In Inkscape click and drag to select the element(s) you want to extract:

3.) Invert the selection with ! and delete the selected object with DELETE:

4.) Crop the document to the remaining objects by accessing the Document Properties dialog with CTRL+SHIFT+D and selecting "fit document to image":

5.) Save the document as a PDF file from the File --> Save as dialog:

6.) If there are bitmap/raster images in your cropped document you can set their DPI in the dialog that appears next:

7.) If you followed all steps you will have produced a true PDF file that only consists of the objects of your choice:

Save this as a shell script, like pdfextractor.sh:

#!/bin/bash
# this function uses 3 arguments:
#     $1 is the first page of the range to extract
#     $2 is the last page of the range to extract
#     $3 is the input file
#     output file will be named "inputfile_pXX-pYY.pdf"
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER \
   -dFirstPage="${1}" \
   -dLastPage="${2}" \
   -sOutputFile="${3%.pdf}_p${1}-p${2}.pdf" \
   "${3}"

To run type:

./pdfextractor.sh 4 20 myfile.pdf

1. 4 refers to the page it will start the new pdf.

2. 20 refers to the page it will end the pdf with.

3. myfile.pdf is the pdf file you want to extract parts.

The output would be myfile_p4_p20.pdf in the same directory the original pdf file.

All this and more information here: Tech Tip

In any system that a TeX distribution is installed:

pdfjam <input file> <page ranges> -o <output file>

For example:

pdfjam original.pdf 5-10 -o out.pdf

See https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/79626/8666

There is a command line utility called pdfseparate.

From the docs:

pdfseparate sample.pdf sample-%d.pdf

extracts  all pages from sample.pdf, if i.e. sample.pdf has 3 pages, it
   produces

sample-1.pdf, sample-2.pdf, sample-3.pdf

Or, to select a single page (in this case, the first page) from the file sample.pdf:

pdfseparate -f 1 -l 1 sample.pdf sample-1.pdf

pdftk (sudo apt-get install pdftk) is a great command line too for PDF manipulation. Here are some examples of what pdftk can do:

   Collate scanned pages
     pdftk A=even.pdf B=odd.pdf shuffle A B output collated.pdf
     or if odd.pdf is in reverse order:
     pdftk A=even.pdf B=odd.pdf shuffle A Bend-1 output collated.pdf

   Join in1.pdf and in2.pdf into a new PDF, out1.pdf
     pdftk in1.pdf in2.pdf cat output out1.pdf
     or (using handles):
     pdftk A=in1.pdf B=in2.pdf cat A B output out1.pdf
     or (using wildcards):
     pdftk *.pdf cat output combined.pdf

   Remove page 13 from in1.pdf to create out1.pdf
     pdftk in.pdf cat 1-12 14-end output out1.pdf
     or:
     pdftk A=in1.pdf cat A1-12 A14-end output out1.pdf

   Burst a single PDF document into pages and dump its data to
   doc_data.txt
     pdftk in.pdf burst

   Rotate the first PDF page to 90 degrees clockwise
     pdftk in.pdf cat 1east 2-end output out.pdf

   Rotate an entire PDF document to 180 degrees
     pdftk in.pdf cat 1-endsouth output out.pdf

In your case, I would do:

     pdftk A=input.pdf cat A<page_range> output output.pdf

I was trying to do the same. All you have to do is:

1. install pdftk:

   sudo apt-get install pdftk
   

2. if you want to extract random pages:

   pdftk myoldfile.pdf cat 1 2 4 5 output mynewfile.pdf
   

3. if you want to extract a range:

   pdftk myoldfile.pdf cat 1-2 4-5 output mynewfile.pdf
   

Please check the source for more infos.

Have you tried PDF Mod?

You can for example.. extract pages and save them as pdf.

Description:

PDF Mod is a simple tool for modifying PDF documents. It can rotate, extract, remove
and reorder pages via drag and drop. Multiple documents may be combined via drag
and drop. You may also edit the title, subject, author and keywords of a PDF
document using PDF Mod.

sudo apt install pdfmod

Hope this will useful.

Regars.