Convert n-up PDF (several pages per sheet) back to single pages

[Martin]

How can I convert a n-per-page PDF (i.e. one where a multi-page source document has been combined into a single-page PDF) back into a regular 1-per-page PDF?

Example: I downloaded this manual for my electric toothbrush, however it is 1-page PDF with 30+ pages shrunk and fitted on to it...

... I want to end-up with a multiple-page PDF, where each red box below is its own full-size (A4) page in the PDF ...

Thanks!

[Martin]

ADMIN: Please can you change the question title to: "How to convert single-page (n-per-page) PDF to multi-page (1-per-page) PDF? (split, crop, extract)" -- I tried but couldn't find a way to edit the question.

[Stefan Ziegler]

I think you can use the Split PDF tool and there use the halven pages mode. This splits the pages in the middle.

[Martin]

Thanks Stefan,

I tried using Split PDF (Halve pages mode) and this did split the single page into 2 pages (dividing the page in half, vertically) as you said...

Unfortunately...
-- This left me with 2x 15-per-page PDFs (rather than 1x 30-per-page PDF) and so still quite far from my ideal output
-- Also, the cut point ended up going through the middle of a page

Is there any way I can control this mode more accurately (e.g. set the pixels to cut at, etc)?

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

Halve pages always cuts exactly in the middle, the cut position cannot be set. Splitting one sheet into a grid of several pages (the reverse of "Pages per sheet") is not possible yet either. A freely selectable cut position is on our to-do list, and we have added your case of splitting a sheet into a grid to it. Thank you for the detailed example.

Until then the only way is Crop PDF in its visual mode: crop the sheet to one page area, save the result, repeat this for every area and then join the files with Merge PDF. For 30 pages on one sheet this is a lot of work, so it is only practical for a few pages.

• Crop PDF: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/crop-pdf
• Merge PDF: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/merge-pdf

[Martin]

Hi PDF24 Support,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to this post.

I have been using the manual crop, but as you point out, this is a lot of work (usually involving a spreadsheet to calculate the margins and size of the first page, then shift this along N-1 times, to calculate the crop points for page N, etc)... To be clear though, this is 100% of the manufacturer/author of the PDF and appreciate there is never going to be an easy way of doing this -- it's just frustrating, having to spend 30-60 minutes to crop and re-format a PDF into an actually readable/usable format!

A visual crop tool would be great, especially if this could have:

• Hovering zoomed-in preview window (to pick a pixel-perfect crop point, e.g. to make sure I crop inside the borders on the example image above)
• Editable input boxes to refine the crop positions and/or dimensions of the crop box (this would be key to ensure pages were all cropped to the same size)

I will look forward to the visual crop feature whenever you/team are able to add this in, until then thanks again for your reply and all your work on PDF24!

[PDF24 Support]

Hello,

the visual crop is already there in Crop PDF, online and in PDF24 Toolbox:

1. Add your PDF and switch on Visual mode (the switch appears once the PDF is added).
2. Drag the edges of the crop frame on the page preview. Enter full size mode gives you a larger preview.
3. The frame and the margin fields Left, Top, Right and Bottom (in mm) are linked: you can also type exact values, and the frame follows.

For your grid this saves the spreadsheet: all page areas have the same size, so for the next area to the right you add the area width to Left and subtract it from Right (for the next row the same with Top and Bottom). It is still one run per area, though.

A zoomed-in preview while dragging is not available yet. Thank you for the suggestion, we will add it to our list together with your case of splitting a sheet into a grid.

Crop PDF: https://tools.pdf24.org/en/crop-pdf

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