Spliting PDF files with specific names

For anyone landing here with the same need (one page per employee, files to be named so an HR bulk uploader can match them), here is what the options look like in practice.

1. Bookmarks, as Bernd suggests. Acrobat can split by top-level bookmarks and use the bookmark names as file names. It works, but you have to create one bookmark per employee with the right name, so for 100+ staff every month it mostly moves the manual work rather than removing it.

2. A plug-in. Evermap's AutoSplit adds "split and name from text on the page" to Acrobat. You show it where the name is, and it names each file from it. Paid (from $99 according to their site), Windows only, works with Acrobat Standard or Pro, so it fits your Pro DC setup.

3. A custom script, as try67 says. Good if the layout never changes.

4. Outside Acrobat: PDFsam Visual has a split-by-text mode that can use the detected text as the file name. A short Python script with pypdf also does it if someone on your side is comfortable with that.

Two practical points for the HR upload:

- Check exactly what the uploader matches on. If it accepts an employee number, use that rather than the name: two people with the same name, or accents and hyphens, will break name matching.
- The PDF must contain real text (you can select the name with the mouse). PDFs produced by payroll or accounting software normally do; scans don't, and need OCR first.

Disclosure: I'm building a small browser tool for exactly this (drop the PDF, draw a box around the name or employee number once, download a ZIP of named files, nothing is uploaded). It isn't live yet, but the description is here if it helps: https://splitandname.vercel.app/?utm_source=adobe

Short answer: not with the free Acrobat Reader. Reader can't split a PDF at all. Acrobat Standard and Pro can (Organize Pages > Split), but the output files are named with the original file name plus a number or label. There is no built-in option to name each file from text on the page, such as the person's name.

For your case (10 invitations, one page each, one file per person), these are the options I know of:

1. Acrobat Standard/Pro + the AutoSplit plug-in from Evermap. It splits the document and names each file from text found on the page. It is a paid plug-in, Windows only, and needs the full Acrobat, not Reader.

2. PDFsam Visual (desktop, Windows/Mac/Linux). Its "split by text" mode lets you select the area where the name is; it starts a new file each time that text changes and can use the text as the file name.

3. Split first, rename after. Split into single pages with any tool, then rename the 10 files by hand. Fine for 10 pages, painful for 200.

Two things to check before trying 1 or 2: the names must be real text (you can select them with the mouse; if the PDF is a scan, you need OCR first), and the name should sit at the same place on every page.

Disclosure: I'm building a small browser tool for exactly this (drop the PDF, draw a box around the name once, download a ZIP of named files, nothing is uploaded). It is not live yet, but the description is here if it would help you or others who find this thread: https://splitandname.vercel.app/?utm_source=adobe

SodaPDF performs the task about which you are inquiring.  It allows you to extract one or more pages into a separate file; it performs rearranging of pages as well, if desired.  The extracted pages have the file name "xxx.extract.pdf", but you can rename it once it is saved.  The original file remains intact.  To perform extraction of EVERY page as separate files, you would have to extract ONE page, go to the folder and rename it, then repeat that process for every page, because they all get initially saved as xxx.extract.pdf and they would overwrite one another if you didn't rename then each time.

Hope that helps.