HowtodeletepagesfromaPDF

Naming the pages to drop

Commas and hyphens do the work: 1, 4-6, 12 removes those and copies everything else through in its original order. The words first and last save counting, so 1, last drops a cover sheet and a back page in one pass.

Your original file is never modified — the tool writes a new copy — so a wrong selection costs you nothing but the second attempt.

The thing deleting does not do

Removing a page removes it from the document. It does not redact anything: if the page you deleted held a number you did not want shared, and someone has an earlier copy of the file, the deletion cannot reach it.

More importantly, deleting a page is not the same as covering something on a page. Drawing a black box over a figure in an editor hides it visually while the text stays underneath, selectable by anyone who knows to try. Genuine redaction means removing the content, and the safe practical route is to delete the whole page, or to flatten the document so what is left is a picture rather than text.

Blank pages from a duplex scan

Scanning double-sided paper where only one side is printed produces a document that is half empty pages. They are rarely truly blank — a faint shadow of the other side is enough that automatic blank detection misses them.

The quick manual version: even-numbered pages are usually the empty ones, so 2, 4, 6-… removes them in one selection. Check the page count afterwards, which is faster than scrolling.

What travels with the remaining pages

Page content, text and images are preserved exactly. Document-level extras — bookmarks, form fields — are not carried over, because what is left is copied into a fresh document. If a form matters, fill and flatten it before trimming.