How to Extract Only Even or Odd Pages from a PDF

You might need only the odd or only the even pages of a PDF for a few reasons: a scanner that scanned every sheet front and back and left blank backs, a document scanned in two passes (all fronts, then all backs), or a booklet you want to print on one side at a time. Here is how to do it for free.

The quick way: type odd or even

Open the Extract PDF Pages tool and choose your file.
In Pages to extract, type odd or even.
Press Run. The new PDF contains pages 1, 3, 5 and so on, or 2, 4, 6 and so on.

You can combine the words with normal ranges, for example odd,40-. The page range syntax reference lists every option. To get the same result the other way round, delete the even pages with even and keep the rest.

The file is processed in your browser and never uploaded, so this works for confidential scans too.

Removing blank back pages from a scan

If your scanner saved every sheet front and back, and the backs are blank, every even page of the PDF is empty. Extract odd and you get a clean file with only the printed sides. Flip through the result before deleting the original, in case some sheets did have something on the back.

Merging fronts and backs from two scans

Scanners without a duplex feeder make you scan all the fronts, flip the stack and scan all the backs. You end up with two files, and the backs are usually in reverse order. To combine them:

Merge the two PDFs with the fronts file first.
Open Reorder PDF Pages and type the interleaved order. For 5 sheets (pages 1-5 are fronts, 6-10 are backs in reverse) the order is 1,10,2,9,3,8,4,7,5,6. If the backs are in normal order, use 1,6,2,7,3,8,4,9,5,10.

With Acrobat Reader

The free Acrobat Reader cannot save pages directly, but its print dialog can. Choose File, then Print, pick Microsoft Print to PDF (Windows) or Save as PDF (Mac), open More Options and set Odd or Even Pages. Printing redraws the pages, so links and form fields may not survive. The browser extractor copies the pages unchanged.