Extracting Page Ranges via Control File

Introduction: This tutorial shows how to extract custom page ranges from a single PDF document into multiple PDF files using the "Control File" method provided by AutoSplit™ plug-in for the Adobe® Acrobat®. The control file is a plain text document that contains user-specified instructions for performing splitting and merging operations.; We are going to create a control file that extract multiple page ranges into separate PDF files. Each output file is assigned a custom file name.; This operation is also available in the Action Wizard (Acrobat's batch processing tool) and can be used for automating of document processing workflows.
Prerequisites: You need a copy of the Adobe® Acrobat® along with the AutoSplit Pro™ plug-in installed on your computer in order to use this tutorial. You can download trial versions of both the Adobe® Acrobat® and the AutoSplit™.

Step 1 - Open the "Merge Multiple Documents Using Control File" Dialog

Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application. Select "Plug-Ins > Merge Documents > Merge Multiple Documents Using Control File..." from the main menu.

Step 2 - Create a Control File

Click "New Control File..." button to create a new control file. The blank control file template will be shown in the text editor.

Type processing instructions into the "Edit Control File" dialog. The minimal control file should contain instructions for the input folder, output folder and define at least one output file. The following example creates 3 output PDF documents by extracting one or more page ranges from MyFile.pdf.

inputfolder=c:\Data\A
outputfolder=c:\Data\B
pagerange=38-47,MyFile.pdf,>Pages38-47.pdf
pagerange=51-51,MyFile.pdf,pagerange=87-90,MyFile.pdf,>Pages51_87-90.pdf
pagerange=6-6,MyFile.pdf,>Page6.pdf

Line-by-Line Explanation:

Set the input folder to "c:\Data\A". All references to the files that follow this instruction will assume this folder.

inputfolder=c:\Data\A

Set the output folder to "c:\Data\B". All output files that follow this instruction will be saved into this folder.

outputfolder=c:\Data\B

Pages 38-47 will be extracted from MyFile.pdf and saved as Pages38-47.pdf:

pagerange=38-47,MyFile.pdf,>Pages38-47.pdf

Pages 51, 87-90 will be extracted from MyFile.pdf and saved as Pages51_87-90.pdf:

pagerange=51-51,MyFile.pdf,pagerange=87-90,MyFile.pdf,>Pages51_87-90.pdf

Page 6 will be extracted from MyFile.pdf and saved as Page6.pdf:

pagerange=6-6,MyFile.pdf,pagerange=87-90,MyFile.pdf,>Page6.pdf

The "Control File" method can be used for both PDF splitting and merging operations. Read more about the "Control File" syntax .

The same operation can be also done via a regular "Split Document" interface ("Plug-ins > Split Documents > Split Document" menu).

Save control file by clicking "OK".

Specify a file name and a folder to save the control file. The control files have *.mergefile extension. Click "Save".

Step 3 - Run the Extraction

Click "OK" button in the main screen to run the extraction process.

Step 4 - Inspect the Results

Click "OK" to close the summary dialog.

Inspect the content of the output folder. There should be 3 new files available: Pages38_47.pdf, Pages51_87-90.pdf, Page6.pdf.

Page 6 has been extracted from MyFile.pdf and saved as Page6.pdf in c:\Data\B folder.
Pages 38-47 have been extracted from MyFile.pdf and saved as Pages38-47.pdf in c:\Data\B folder.
Pages 51 and 87-90 have been extracted from MyFile.pdf and saved as Pages51_87-90.pdf in c:\Data\B folder.

The plug-in has extracted from PDF file custom page ranges into separate PDF files

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