PDF tools / Practical guide

How to merge PDFs and extract pages without uploading files

A report and its attachments often need to become one PDF. A recipient may then need only a few pages. Work through both tasks with the practice files below before handling your own documents.

By Saurabh Kumar · Updated

Download the PDF practice files

Sample A contains two labelled pages: A1 and A2. Sample B contains three: B1, B2 and B3. Both are synthetic documents with selectable text and no personal information. They are deliberately small, so you can focus on page order rather than download speed.

Download Sample A (2 pages)Download Sample B (3 pages)

The two sample PDFs are released under CC0. Teachers, tutorial authors and tool reviewers may copy and reuse them without asking permission. Linking to this guide is welcome and optional. Read the file notes and licence.

1. Merge two PDF files into one document

  1. Open Merge PDF and choose both practice files.
  2. Use the up and down arrow buttons to put Sample A before Sample B. This controls whole-file order; it does not rearrange individual pages inside a file.
  3. Select Merge 2 PDFs and save the downloaded merged.pdf. Open it in a PDF viewer.

Expected result: five pages in this order: A1, A2, B1, B2, B3. Search for B2 or select some text to check that the sample text remains usable. If the order is wrong, move the source files and merge again. Your original files stay unchanged.

2. Extract selected PDF pages

  1. Open Split PDF and choose the five-page merged.pdf.
  2. In Extract pages mode, enter 1,3,5 in Pages to extract. Page numbers start at 1.
  3. Select Extract to PDF and open the new download. It should contain three pages labelled A1, B1 and B3.

Entering 2-4 instead selects A2, B1 and B2. Multiple entered ranges become one extracted PDF, not one download per range. Split every page is the separate mode for making one PDF per source page; your browser may ask permission to save multiple files.

3. Check before sharing the result

  • Compare the page count and labels with the expected result. Open the first and last page.
  • Check readable text, images and orientation. A scanned page remains a scan; these operations do not perform OCR.
  • Keep the source files. Forms, annotations, bookmarks and digital signatures may not survive a page-copy workflow as expected. Use an appropriate document editor when those features matter.
  • Page extraction is not redaction. It does not securely remove sensitive information from a retained page.

Photos, screenshots or PDF pages: choose the right converter

Use JPG to PDF for receipt photos and PNG to PDF for screenshots. Choose A4 or Letter when printed paper size matters. Each image becomes one page, and transparent areas are flattened onto white. These tools re-encode images as JPEG, so they do not preserve every original pixel.

Use PDF to JPG when you need pictures of PDF pages. The output is an image: selectable text, links and interactive fields are no longer interactive. Merging or splitting the PDF is a better choice when you need a document.

Privacy and troubleshooting

The merge and split tools read the chosen files in your browser and create local downloads. The PDF contents are not sent to TooleraAI's server for processing. The website still loads its page assets and may use services described in our privacy policy; browser processing does not mean the entire website makes no network requests. Read the privacy policy.

If a PDF cannot be read, it may be encrypted, corrupt or unsupported. Use an unlocked copy you are authorised to access. If a large merge fails, try fewer files on a device with more available memory. Do not assume a fixed size limit or guaranteed completion time: device capacity and document complexity differ.