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discreetpdf.com

Split PDF pages in half

Scanned a book and got two pages on every sheet? Drop it here and each spread becomes the two pages it was printed as.

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About this tool

Scanning a book, a magazine, or anything printed two-up gives you one wide page per spread. Two pages of reading sit side by side on every sheet, which is fine on a desk and unusable on a phone: you zoom to the left half, scroll, zoom to the right half, and repeat for two hundred pages. The same thing happens with a stapled A3 handout fed through an office scanner, and with the PDF a print shop sends back as imposed sheets.

Drop the file and every page is cut down the middle into the two pages it was printed as. Page one is shown first with the cut drawn across it and the halves numbered, so you can see exactly where the seam lands and which half comes first before committing two hundred pages to it. A landscape page is cut left and right, a portrait page top and bottom, and you can override that per document if the automatic choice reads your scan wrong.

Nothing is re-rendered. Each half is the original page with a smaller visible area, so the text stays selectable, the vectors stay sharp, and a large scan does not double in size on the way through. Books that read right to left have a checkbox, because a manga or Arabic spread needs the right half first. A cover page that is not a spread can be left whole. It all runs in your browser and the file is never uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between this and Split PDF?
Split PDF divides a document into separate files by page ranges; the pages themselves are untouched. This tool changes the pages: every page becomes two, and you get one document with twice as many pages. Use this one when two pages of reading are printed on each sheet.
Will the text still be selectable?
Yes. The halves are the original page shown through a smaller window, not pictures of it, so text, links and vector graphics all survive exactly as they were. Nothing is converted to an image at any point.
Is the other half really gone from each page?
No, and the distinction deserves spelling out. Each output page still contains the whole spread, with only one half made visible. Both halves end up in the same document so nothing is hidden from anyone, but copying text from a page can pick up words from its neighbour. Removing the other half outright would mean turning every page into an image and losing the text layer, which is a much worse trade.
My scan is rotated. Will it cut in the wrong place?
No. The cut follows what you see, not how the page is stored. A page saved sideways with a rotation flag is measured the way it is displayed, so "left half" always means the left half on your screen.
The first page is a cover, not a spread. Can I keep it whole?
Yes: tick "leave the first page whole" and it passes through untouched while every other page is cut. Without it a single cover would be split into two ruined pages you would then have to delete.
What about right-to-left books?
Tick the right-to-left box and the right half of each spread becomes the earlier page. The preview renumbers so you can confirm the reading order before you produce the file.

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