How do I extract just certain pages from a PDF?

If you're looking for a completely free and lightweight way to extract pages from PDF, Mu PDF's mutool is a solid pick. It's a command-line tool, so it's not super flashy, but it gets the job done fast and without any fuss—and it's totally local, so you don't have to worry about uploading your files anywhere.

The most straightforward command to extract pages from PDF actually uses the mutool clean subcommand. While mutool extract is for pulling out images and fonts, mutool clean is what you want for pages.

You'd type something like this in your command prompt:

bash

mutool clean -gggg input.pdf output.pdf 1-10,12

This command saves pages 1 through 10, and also page 12, from your original input.pdf into a new file called output.pdf. The -gggg part just tells the tool to clean up any unused junk from the file so you get a nice, small output.

A Quick Heads-Up

• It's Command-Line Only: There's no fancy graphical interface. You'll need to be comfortable typing commands in a terminal (like Command Prompt on Windows). But once you get the hang of it, it's super fast for repeating the same task over and over.
• A Minor Learning Curve: It can feel a bit intimidating at first, but the commands are very logical once you see a few examples.
• Useful for More Than Just Extracting: mutool can also do things like clean up messy PDFs, render pages to images, and inspect document info, so it's a pretty powerful little Swiss Army knife.

In short, if you're willing to type a few commands, mutool is a fantastic, zero-cost way to extract pages from PDF on your Windows machine.