How to Split a PDF into Multiple PDFs by Custom Page Selections in Google Colab

If you want to split a PDF into multiple PDFs by selecting specific pages for each one, you can use Python and PyMuPDF in Google Colab.

For example, you can turn a 20-page PDF into 3 separate PDFs, each containing 5 pages of your choice.

1. Install PyMuPDF

First, run this code in a Google Colab cell to install PyMuPDF:

%pip install -q -U pymupdf

2. Import libraries

Next, import the libraries needed for the workflow:

from google.colab import files
import pymupdf
import os
import shutil

These libraries are used for:

• files — uploading and downloading files in Google Colab
• pymupdf — opening and creating PDF files
• os — creating and working with folders
• shutil — creating the ZIP archive at the end

3. Upload your PDF

Use Google Colab's file upload dialog to select the PDF you want to split:

uploaded = files.upload()

if not uploaded:
  raise ValueError("No PDF was uploaded.")

input_pdf = next(iter(uploaded))

After running the cell, click Choose Files and select your PDF.

The uploaded filename is stored in the input_pdf variable.

4. Open your PDF

Now open the uploaded PDF using PyMuPDF:

doc = pymupdf.open(input_pdf)

The doc object represents your original PDF document.

5. Specify the pages for each PDF

Create a dictionary called selections to specify which pages should be included in each output PDF:

Page numbers start at 0, so 0 is the first page, 1 is the second page, and so on.

For a 20-page PDF split into 3 parts of 5 pages each:

selections = {
    "part1.pdf": [0, 1, 3, 4, 5],
    "part2.pdf": [6, 9, 10, 12, 13],
    "part3.pdf": [14, 16, 17, 18, 19]
}

The pages don't have to be consecutive, and you can arrange them in whatever order you specify.

6. Create the separate PDFs

Next, create a folder for the output files:

output_dir = "split_multiple_pdfs"
os.makedirs(output_dir, exist_ok=True)

Now loop through the selections and create each PDF:

for filename, pages in selections.items():
    output = pymupdf.open()

    for page_number in pages:
        output.insert_pdf(
            doc,
            from_page=page_number,
            to_page=page_number
        )

    output.save(os.path.join(output_dir, filename))
    output.close()

doc.close()

Here's what this code does:

1. Goes through each filename and its list of selected pages.
2. Creates a new, empty PDF.
3. Copies each selected page from the original PDF.
4. Saves the new PDF inside the output folder.
5. Closes the new PDF.
6. Finally, closes the original PDF.

The resulting folder will look like this:

split_multiple_pdfs/

├── part1.pdf

├── part2.pdf

└── part3.pdf

7. Download all PDFs as a ZIP file

Instead of downloading each PDF separately, create a ZIP file containing all the parts:

zip_path = shutil.make_archive(
    "split_multiple_pdfs",
    "zip",
    output_dir
)

This creates:
split_multiple_pdfs.zip

The ZIP file contains all of the PDFs from the split_multiple_pdfs folder.

8. Download the ZIP file

Finally, use Google Colab's files.download() function:

files.download(zip_path)

Your browser will download:
split_multiple_pdfs.zip

After extracting the ZIP file, you'll find all of your newly created PDFs inside.

Complete Example

%pip install -q -U pymupdf

from google.colab import files
import pymupdf
import os
import shutil

uploaded = files.upload()

if not uploaded:
    raise ValueError("No PDF was uploaded.")

input_pdf = next(iter(uploaded))

doc = pymupdf.open(input_pdf)

selections = {
    "part1.pdf": [0, 1, 3, 4, 5],
    "part2.pdf": [6, 9, 10, 12, 13],
    "part3.pdf": [14, 16, 17, 18, 19]
}

output_dir = "split_multiple_pdfs"
os.makedirs(output_dir, exist_ok=True)

for filename, pages in selections.items():
    output = pymupdf.open()

    for page_number in pages:
        output.insert_pdf(
            doc,
            from_page=page_number,
            to_page=page_number
        )

    output.save(os.path.join(output_dir, filename))
    output.close()

doc.close()

zip_path = shutil.make_archive(
    "split_multiple_pdfs",
    "zip",
    output_dir
)

files.download(zip_path)

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Open the notebook

Open the Google Colab notebook for this PDF mini-guide and run the code as you follow along.

[Open in Google Colab]

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This mini-guide was originally published on PDF Python Hub, where you can find more in-depth Python resources for working with PDFs.

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More PDF Python Resources

Want to learn how to Split a PDF by Custom Page Selections in Google Colab?

Check out this mini-guide: How to Split a PDF by Custom Page Selections in Google Colab