Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Upload your PDF file
Select your .pdf file. A dedicated FormatDrop PDF splitter — with page thumbnails and range selection — is coming soon; it is not live yet. Today, the FormatDrop PDF to PNG converter exports every page as its own image file, locally in your browser with no upload. Free tier: 5 files at a time, 10 MB per file; Pro raises the size cap to 500 MB.
Go to converter - 2
Split into real PDFs with a desktop tool (today)
To split a PDF into smaller PDFs today, use a desktop tool. On Mac, Preview works: open the PDF, show thumbnails, select the pages you want, and drag them to a folder — each drag creates a new PDF. On any OS, qpdf is free: `qpdf --pages input.pdf 1-10 -- part1.pdf` extracts pages 1–10. The FAQ below has more commands. FormatDrop's browser splitter is coming soon and will cover these options without an install.
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Save the output files
qpdf and PDFtk write the split PDFs next to your original, one file per range or per page. Splitting copies pages without re-encoding, so quality is identical to the source. If you used FormatDrop's PDF to PNG route instead, you get one image per page, with a Download-all ZIP for multi-page files.
Why split a PDF?
Splitting PDFs is the inverse of merging — both are routine PDF operations that preserve every byte of quality from the source document.
Your files never leave your device
FormatDrop runs the conversion engine entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly. No file upload. No server. Nothing stored. You can verify this by opening DevTools → Network tab and watching: zero upload requests.
Frequently asked questions
Best command-line tool to split PDF?
Will I lose quality when splitting?
How do I split by chapter using bookmarks?
No account. No upload. Works in any browser.