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Split a PDF at a page

Split a PDF into two documents at a page boundary: everything before the split page, then the split page onward.

Split a PDF document into two documents at a page boundary: the pages before the split page form the first part, and the split page and everything after it form the second part. This action returns multiple documents (here, exactly two parts) packaged into a single response according to the Accept header. The API is stateless: your document is processed in-region and never stored.

Endpoint

POST
/v1/split_at_page

Available in every region. See Regions & data residency for routing and data residency.

Region URL
Global https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
United States https://us.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
US HIPAA https://hipaa.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
European Union https://eu.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
United Kingdom https://uk.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
Canada https://ca.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
Australia https://au.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
Japan https://jp.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
India https://in.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page
Brazil https://br.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page

Authentication

Authenticate every request with your secret API key in the X-API-Key header, over HTTPS. Create and manage keys from the dashboard. See Authentication for details.

Request

The endpoint accepts a multipart/form-data request body.

filefilerequired

The input PDF document.

pageintegerrequired

The page number that begins the second part. Must be between 2 and the number of pages in the document, so that both parts contain pages.

Examples

Split a document into two parts at page 5:

cURLbash
curl https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page \
  -H 'X-API-Key: your_api_key' \
  -F file=@input.pdf \
  -F page=5 \
  -o parts.zip
Pythonpython
# pip install requests
import requests

with open('input.pdf', 'rb') as file:
    response = requests.post(
        'https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page',
        headers={'X-API-Key': 'your_api_key'},
        files={'file': file},
        data={'page': 5},
    )

response.raise_for_status()
with open('parts.zip', 'wb') as output:
    output.write(response.content)
Node.jsjavascript
// Node.js 18+
import { readFile, writeFile } from 'node:fs/promises';

const body = new FormData();
body.set('file', new Blob([await readFile('input.pdf')]), 'input.pdf');
body.set('page', '5');

const response = await fetch('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'X-API-Key': 'your_api_key' },
  body,
});

if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
await writeFile('parts.zip', Buffer.from(await response.arrayBuffer()));
PHPphp
<?php
$ch = curl_init('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ['X-API-Key: your_api_key'],
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => [
        'file' => new CURLFile('input.pdf', 'application/pdf'),
        'page' => '5',
    ],
]);

$zip = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE) === 200) {
    file_put_contents('parts.zip', $zip);
}
Rubyruby
# gem install http
require 'http'

response = HTTP
  .headers('X-API-Key' => 'your_api_key')
  .post('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page', form: {
    file: HTTP::FormData::File.new('input.pdf'),
    page: '5',
  })

File.write('parts.zip', response.body) if response.status.success?
Gogo
package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"io"
	"mime/multipart"
	"net/http"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	var buf bytes.Buffer
	form := multipart.NewWriter(&buf)

	file, _ := os.Open("input.pdf")
	defer file.Close()
	part, _ := form.CreateFormFile("file", "input.pdf")
	io.Copy(part, file)

	form.WriteField("page", "5")
	form.Close()

	req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page", &buf)
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", form.FormDataContentType())
	req.Header.Set("X-API-Key", "your_api_key")

	res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	defer res.Body.Close()

	out, _ := os.Create("parts.zip")
	defer out.Close()
	io.Copy(out, res.Body)
}
C#csharp
using var client = new HttpClient();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("X-API-Key", "your_api_key");

using var form = new MultipartFormDataContent
{
    { new ByteArrayContent(File.ReadAllBytes("input.pdf")), "file", "input.pdf" },
    { new StringContent("5"), "page" },
};

var response = await client.PostAsync(
    "https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page", form);
response.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
await File.WriteAllBytesAsync(
    "parts.zip", await response.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync());

The ZIP contains exactly two documents: 00001.pdf holds pages 1–4, and 00002.pdf holds page 5 through the end.

Response

This action returns multiple documents, packaged into a single response according to the Accept request header. See Response formats & content negotiation for the full negotiation reference. With no Accept header, the default is a ZIP archive:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/zip

Select the packaging with the Accept header:

Accept header Response
(none sent) application/zip, the default
application/zip A ZIP archive of the output PDFs
application/json A JSON envelope of base64-encoded documents
multipart/mixed One PDF per part
anything else 406 Not Acceptable

The output is always exactly two documents, named 00001.pdf (the pages before the split page) and 00002.pdf (the split page and everything after it).

For end-to-end code that calls a split action and unpacks each format (extracting the ZIP, decoding the JSON envelope, or reading the multipart parts), see the Splitting a PDF guide.

Errors

Failed requests return an application/problem+json body. The most common one for this endpoint is a 400, returned when page is missing or out of range, or when file isn’t a readable PDF. The errors object names each field:

{
  "type": "https://www.pdfblocks.com/docs/api/v1/error/400",
  "title": "One or more validation errors occurred.",
  "status": 400,
  "errors": {
    "page": ["The field page must be between 2 and the number of pages in the document."]
  }
}

If the Accept header matches none of application/zip, application/json, or multipart/mixed (for example Accept: application/pdf), the API responds with 406 Not Acceptable. Omit Accept to take the ZIP default, or request one of the supported media types. A missing or invalid X-API-Key returns a 401. See Errors for every status code and the full response shape.

Recipes

A common variation. Expand it to see the code in every language.

Receive the parts as a JSON envelope

Send Accept: application/json to get every part inline in one response, then base64-decode each entry’s content to a file named by its name:

cURLbash
curl https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page \
  -H 'X-API-Key: your_api_key' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -F file=@input.pdf \
  -F page=5 \
  | jq -r '.documents[] | .name + " " + .content' \
  | while read -r name content; do
      echo "$content" | base64 --decode > "$name"
    done
Pythonpython
# pip install requests
import base64
import requests

with open('input.pdf', 'rb') as file:
    response = requests.post(
        'https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page',
        headers={
            'X-API-Key': 'your_api_key',
            'Accept': 'application/json',
        },
        files={'file': file},
        data={'page': 5},
    )

response.raise_for_status()
for document in response.json()['documents']:
    with open(document['name'], 'wb') as output:
        output.write(base64.b64decode(document['content']))
Node.jsjavascript
// Node.js 18+
import { readFile, writeFile } from 'node:fs/promises';

const body = new FormData();
body.set('file', new Blob([await readFile('input.pdf')]), 'input.pdf');
body.set('page', '5');

const response = await fetch('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'X-API-Key': 'your_api_key', Accept: 'application/json' },
  body,
});

if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const { documents } = await response.json();
for (const doc of documents) {
  await writeFile(doc.name, Buffer.from(doc.content, 'base64'));
}
PHPphp
<?php
$ch = curl_init('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'X-API-Key: your_api_key',
        'Accept: application/json',
    ],
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => [
        'file' => new CURLFile('input.pdf', 'application/pdf'),
        'page' => '5',
    ],
]);

$body = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE) === 200) {
    foreach (json_decode($body, true)['documents'] as $document) {
        file_put_contents($document['name'], base64_decode($document['content']));
    }
}
Rubyruby
# gem install http
require 'base64'
require 'http'
require 'json'

response = HTTP
  .headers('X-API-Key' => 'your_api_key', 'Accept' => 'application/json')
  .post('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page', form: {
    file: HTTP::FormData::File.new('input.pdf'),
    page: '5',
  })

if response.status.success?
  JSON.parse(response.body)['documents'].each do |document|
    File.write(document['name'], Base64.decode64(document['content']))
  end
end
Gogo
package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"encoding/base64"
	"encoding/json"
	"io"
	"mime/multipart"
	"net/http"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	var buf bytes.Buffer
	form := multipart.NewWriter(&buf)

	file, _ := os.Open("input.pdf")
	defer file.Close()
	part, _ := form.CreateFormFile("file", "input.pdf")
	io.Copy(part, file)

	form.WriteField("page", "5")
	form.Close()

	req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page", &buf)
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", form.FormDataContentType())
	req.Header.Set("X-API-Key", "your_api_key")
	req.Header.Set("Accept", "application/json")

	res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	defer res.Body.Close()

	var result struct {
		Documents []struct {
			Name    string `json:"name"`
			Content string `json:"content"`
		} `json:"documents"`
	}
	json.NewDecoder(res.Body).Decode(&result)

	for _, doc := range result.Documents {
		data, _ := base64.StdEncoding.DecodeString(doc.Content)
		os.WriteFile(doc.Name, data, 0644)
	}
}
C#csharp
using System.Text.Json;

using var client = new HttpClient();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("X-API-Key", "your_api_key");
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Accept", "application/json");

using var form = new MultipartFormDataContent
{
    { new ByteArrayContent(File.ReadAllBytes("input.pdf")), "file", "input.pdf" },
    { new StringContent("5"), "page" },
};

var response = await client.PostAsync(
    "https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/split_at_page", form);
response.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();

using var json = JsonDocument.Parse(
    await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync());
foreach (var document in json.RootElement.GetProperty("documents").EnumerateArray())
{
    var name = document.GetProperty("name").GetString()!;
    var content = document.GetProperty("content").GetString()!;
    await File.WriteAllBytesAsync(name, Convert.FromBase64String(content));
}
Split by page count

Split into fixed-size chunks.

Split by file size

Cap each part by byte size.

Extract pages

Keep just one part of the document.

Split into page groups

Define arbitrary page groups by hand.