Create PDF out of another PDF

Silly John Fatty · Feb 23, 2015

I have a PDF file with around 200 pages, of which only around 20 are interesting for me. I'd like to "filter them out" so I can send those 20 pages in PDF format to other people. How do I do that with Preview on Mavericks, without any 3rd party apps?

Thanks

GGJstudios · Feb 23, 2015

Jardins de Vin said:
I have a PDF file with around 200 pages, of which only around 20 are interesting for me. I'd like to "filter them out" so I can send those 20 pages in PDF format to other people. How do I do that with Preview on Mavericks, without any 3rd party apps?

Thanks

Open the PDF in Preview, then click View > Thumbnails. Delete the pages you don't want from the Thumbnail list, then File > Print > PDF > Save as PDF.

Silly John Fatty · Feb 23, 2015

Thanks, but I can't delete any pages it seems. I've searching for a solution but couldn't find one. It's different for every user apparently, even if they have the same system. Weird Apple.

GGJstudios · Feb 23, 2015

Jardins de Vin said:
Thanks, but I can't delete any pages it seems. I've searching for a solution but couldn't find one. It's different for every user apparently, even if they have the same system. Weird Apple.

What happens when you click on a thumbnail and press the Delete key on your keyboard? The functionality works on all Macs and all versions of OS X. If it's not working for you, it may relate to the PDF you're using or a specific problem with your system.

James_C · Feb 23, 2015

Jardins de Vin said:
Thanks, but I can't delete any pages it seems. I've searching for a solution but couldn't find one. It's different for every user apparently, even if they have the same system. Weird Apple.

You can delete pages in a pdf using preview, providing the PDF is not protected. I do this all the time and it works fine. What happens if you try to delete a page ?

Silly John Fatty · Feb 23, 2015

Nothing happens if I hit the delete key, and the delete option is greyed out in the Edit menu. I tried it with many different PDFs and it doesn't work, but I only just found one on which it does work. It happens to be a PDF I've created myself. The other ones are articles I've downloaded from the internet. But they are not protected. I've tried to copy or duplicate them already, but the problem persisted. Okay I just tried to export the existing PDF (from the internet) to another PDF (I'm not sure how this works because I think when you export or save as, it only does that for the selected page of the PDF) but then I noticed that it IS a protected document: it asked me a password in order to save the document somewhere else that's weird because in the Information window of that file, it isn't marked as protected.

GGJstudios · Feb 23, 2015

Jardins de Vin said:
but then I noticed that it IS a protected document: it asked me a password in order to save the document somewhere else that's weird because in the Information window of that file, it isn't marked as protected.

You can remove protection from PDFs by opening them with Chrome, then saving.

Silly John Fatty · Feb 23, 2015

Thanks, but is there no solution without installing any apps? If not I guess I'll have to try that.

GGJstudios · Feb 23, 2015

Jardins de Vin said:
Thanks, but is there no solution without installing any apps? If not I guess I'll have to try that.

For your original question... creating a PDF with selected pages from another PDF.... you can do that with Preview. For the 2nd issue... removing protection from a PDF... there is no bundled OS X app that will accomplish that.

jorgk · Feb 24, 2015

GGJstudios said:
... removing protection from a PDF... there is no bundled OS X app that will accomplish that.

Hm - the 'no' may not be that universal: From one bank-account I get this awful wasteful-to-paper statement as pdf.

If I try Acrobat, Preview, or Illustrator to do anything on it, like deleting useless pages, I can't. In Acrobat it indeed appears as protected.

However, if I open the pdf with Preview, then use Save as ... (option-click when pressing File in the Menu) to a new file, that file I can work on; mostly then I use Illustrator to move the interesting parts onto a single page together.

This will not work universally though for all protected pdfs. I guess it depends on what kind of protection was placed in the original pdf (in Acrobat there's plenty of choices when you protect a pdf).

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