Delete pages from PDF using Preview on Mac

Do you want to remove one or more pages from a PDF file on your Mac? Sometimes you may want to delete ads or blank pages in a PDF file. You can use a PDF editor, such as Adobe Acrobat Pro, to easily get rid of any pages in a PDF file without affecting other pages in the same file. In fact, the default PDF viewer app on Mac, the Preview app, also provides us the workaround to delete PDF pages, although in a not so intuitive way. 

Note that during this process, Preview may change some settings of the source PDF document, you may lose some interactive content on the PDF pages. Double check the created PDF file before you use it. Or you may use Acrobat to remove pages from PDF without losing file quality or affecting other aspects of the PDF file.

Removing pages from PDF using Preview on Mac

Open the PDF file using Preview on Mac. You will see the page thumbnails at the left sidebar in Preview. Press and hold Shift or Command, then click to select the pages you want to retain in the left sidebar. Click the File menu, choose Print from the drop-down menu. The Print dialog pops up. You can specify the pages or page range to print in the Pages section. Check ‘Selected Page in Sidebar‘. Preview the PDF pages and change the settings accordingly. After that, click to open the share menu at the bottom left corner and choose Save as PDF. The Save As screen opens. Here you can fill in a PDF file name, location, tags, title, author, subject, keywords, and finally hit the Save button to save only those selected pages as a new PDF from Preview to Mac using the printing utility.

delete pdf pages preview on Mac

Joining two PDF pages together into one file

Preview also allows us combine two or more PDF or PDF pages. You can refer to this guide to merge PDF files on Mac using Preview and other PDF tools.

1 thought on “Delete pages from PDF using Preview on Mac”

  1. Hi, It was great going through your article regarding how to delete PDF pages from the large document. Every detail you shared is a great piece of information. Yes, you are correct to delete pages we need an online editor.
    I also have an online PDF editor called PDF24 Tools who is a complete solution for all PDF problems.

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