What is the easiest and/or most automated way to take a multi page PDF
and break it into separate PDF files after visually inspecting what
pages in the multi-page PDF are to create each new file?

We have scanned several documents in as multi-page DPF's now we are
looking to break some of the files apart into separate files based
upon visual inspection of the PDF.  I had seen in the past other
software that this was done with a 30% view of the PDF index and the
user visually inspects the page or pages to create the new PDF.  Once
selected the user then selects a file name or naming pattern for the
file to save the new document as, then the user moves to the next
pages to re-do the same process.
 
We do have acrobat Pro 7.0 to accomplish this task.  Any other
software recommendations that are low in cost (200.00 or less for the
software) would also be appreciated.

Hi bonesbrigade01-ga,

There are multiple tools that can split a single PDF into several
smaller PDF files. None require Adobe Acrobat to perform their
advertised functions.

1. PDF Split-Merge - $29.90 per user license
URL: http://www.verypdf.com/pdfpg/index.html

Description:

"PDF Split-Merge is a stand-alone application that can be used to
split, merge, and manage your PDF files, PDF Split- Merge is offered
as an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) application, and a
command line application.

PDF Split-Merge is used to split files by pages, you can split the
file into single pages or save every a few pages as a new file, it
also can be used to merge multiple PDF files or selected pages from
one or more files into a PDF file, preservation of original links, and
form fields."

2. A-PDF Split - $27 per user license
URL: http://www.a-pdf.com/split/

Description:

"A-PDF Split is a unique utility designed to split your PDF file. The
program basically takes a large PDF file and extracts pieces of it
based on the range selected by the user. The extracted pieces will be
stored into a new file or files (if more than one piece extracted)."

3. ARTS PDF Split & Merge - $149 per user license
URL: http://www.artspdf.com/arts_split_and_merge.asp

Description:

"The split functionality lets you split one or more PDF files based on
page groups, page ranges, bookmarks and page marks. The merge
functionality lets you quickly sort and then combine a collection of
PDF documents."

Hopefully one of these will do the trick; they all have the basic
ability to split PDFs but some include different features that you may
also find useful at some point. If you have any questions about the
information above please don't hesitate to post a clarification and I
will try to respond promptly.

Cheers,
answerguru-ga

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Clarification of Answer by answerguru-ga on 06 Mar 2006 09:54 PST

One quick clarification - the last option (ARTS) is actually a plug-in
to Adobe Acrobat, not a standalone:

"ARTS PDF Split & Merge? is an Adobe® Acrobat® plug-in for splitting
and merging batches of PDF files. The split functionality lets you
split one or more PDF files based on page groups, page ranges,
bookmarks and page marks. The merge functionality lets you quickly
sort and then combine a collection of PDF documents."

Apologies for the generalization in the original answer :)

answerguru-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by bonesbrigade01-ga on 06 Mar 2006 22:26 PST

Just one last clarification item - did you find any that let you
"preview" the pdf while you were selecting where to split the file?

Thanks for the quick replies - this gets us rolling.

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Clarification of Answer by answerguru-ga on 07 Mar 2006 00:11 PST

I had a second look and didn't find a product that had previewing of
output files in their feature list. Since you are splitting by pages
(not in the middle of pages) you generally would have a good idea of
what the output would look like. It's just a matter of determining the
page ranges you're interested in.

answerguru-ga

Great response time.

In addition to the above you may wish to try free and opensource
product before laying out money...


http://www.paologios.com/