Split a Large Multi-Page PDF Using PDF.co and Make

6 Minutes Read

Splitting large PDFs can be a time-consuming and challenging task, especially if you have more that 25 pages to split. Whether you need tp split a large PDF into a multiple documents for easier distribution or extract specific sections, manually separating each page can take hours. With PDF.co it can help you automate this process and make it much faster and more efficient to split large PDFs into smaller files.

By combining PDF.co and Make, you can automate the process of splitting large PDFs into a smaller files. This can save you a significant amount of time and effort, especially if you frequently work with large PDFs.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use PDF.co and Make to split large PDFs with more than 25 pages to split into a smaller files. So let’s get started!

IN THIS TUTORIAL

Create the Scenario

Add the PDF Split Module

Run the Scenario

Use the Split Files

Create the Scenario

Add Google Drive – Download a File and connect your Google Drive account.

Select the PDF you want to split, or map its file ID from an earlier trigger. Run the module once to retrieve the file data.

Add the PDF Split Module

Add PDF.co – Split a PDF after Google Drive and connect your PDF.co account.

Configure the module:

Import Options: Select Upload a File.
Data: Map the file data returned by Google Drive.
Output File Name: Enter a name for the split files.
Split By: Select Page Numbers.
Pages: Enter *.
Execution Mode: Select Async for a large document.
Export Type: Select JSON Output.

The asterisk tells PDF.co to create a separate PDF from every page. Selecting JSON Output returns the generated files in a URLs array.

See the PDF.co PDF Split module documentation for the available splitting options.

Add Google Drive Module

Next, search and select the Google Drive app. Alternatively, you may choose to use another cloud storage service to access your source file.
Then, select the Download a File module to initiate the download process from Google Drive.

Setup Google Drive Configuration

Let’s set up the Google Drive configuration.

First, connect your Google Drive account to Make to authorize access.
Next, let’s choose the Select from the List option to see available files in Google Drive.
Then, select My Drive as the drive to be used.
Finally, specify the folder and file name where the source file is located.

Once you have set up the Google Drive configuration, run the scenario to initiate the download of the file from Google Drive.

Google Drive Result

Great! The scenario ran successfully and downloaded the file from Google Drive. We can now add another module to split the large PDF document into smaller PDF files.

Run the Scenario

Run the scenario.

PDF.co will upload the source document, split its pages, and return one temporary URL for each generated PDF.

Open the URLs array in the module output to view or download the individual page files.

Add PDF.co Module

In this step, we will add the PDF.co app and choose the Make an API Call module.

Setup PDF.co Configuration

Let’s set up the PDF.co configuration.

Connect your PDF.co account to Make by adding your API key. You can obtain your API key from your PDF.co dashboard.
Input the PDF.co PDF Split endpoint to split a large PDF document into smaller PDF files.
For the Input Type field, select Upload files and inject as `url` param to automatically input the file from Google Drive.
Specify a name for the output PDF files.
Under the Body parameter, for Item 1 type pages for the key and an asterisk (*) for the value to include all pages in the split.
For Item 2, type inline for the key and true for the value to return the output inside the response.
For Item 3, type async for the key and false for the value.

Split Pages Result

Run the Scenario and you should get a result. The large PDF document has been successfully split into smaller PDF files. Please copy the resulting URLs to view the output.