Organize pages tool is adding more pages

[Mills5]

I'm using the Organize Pages tool to manually delete pages from a 430 page document. My problem is that every page I highlight duplicates itself in the same document?! I watch as my page count rises whilst I highlight.

I just can't work it out. 

[ls_rbls]

Hi,

Would you please describe in more details the steps that you are following before that happens?

Thank you.

[Mills5]

Sure, thank you.

With the file open, I select Tools and then Organize Pages. I hold down 'ctrl' on my keyboard and begin manually clicking the pages I want to delete. After I have selected a few pages, those same pages start appearing again as duplicates, and I can see that my page count rises above the orignal 430.

[Bernd Alheit]

select the page and press the delete button

[Mills5]

Please re-read my forum question

[Bernd Alheit]

Can you delete the pages when you press the delete button?

[ls_rbls]

I am not sure if when you say highlight the pages you actually mean selecting a page for extraction.

If that is the case, when you get the extraction tool bar ribbon opened if you select "Extract" make sure to tick the checkboxes underneath that that says" Delete pages after extraction" and " Extract as separate files".

[Mills5]

Yes I mean selecting the pages, however not for extraction but rather to delete (NB: I am selecting a bunch of unneccssary pages within the PDF that I do not need & would like to delete).

[ls_rbls]

I found a few useful links.

The best solution I could find for your case is to add or create a custom action wizard . This would be the work around to avoid having you to manually select pages using the Organize Pages Action Wizzard (which is not behaving properly when you select pages).

My first approach would be to open the thumbnails pane to the left margin of the working space   and do a manual deletion of the pages. However, because some of the files that you are dealing with are over 400 pages long you may want to automate some of the tasks involved following the steps shown in the following links:

https://www.evermap.com/Tutorial_ASP_DeleteDuplicatePages.asp <----- this is a very good step-by-step tutorial

https://www.evermap.com/ActionWizardDC.asp

https://www.evermap.com/Tutorial_ASP_ActionWizardDC.asp

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/acrobat/using/manipulating-deleting-renumbering-pdf-pages.html

In any case ,

1) perform a search or an advanced search to find duplicates. You will have to define an index catalogue which is very straight forward.

2) Customizing an action wizard just to split /delete/ or delete page ranges. For this to work that is why step 1 above is important so you don't end up deleting pages that were not supposed to be deleted.

For your convenience, I am also including here https://acrobatusers.com/exchange where you can search for other useful action wizards that you can download and add to your collection of tool add-ons and here: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/action-wizard-acrobat-pro.html. 

[ls_rbls]

Hi,

Just following up and see if this issue was finally addressed by applying recent updates to Acrobat.

Thank you.

[Dave__M]

I am wondering if maybe you are using the Ctrl key to multiple-select pages, and you accidentally dragged your selections, effectively duplicating the pages.  The Control key adds the 'create copy' notion to a drag gesture in many programs. I have accidentally done this many times, in many programs over the years if not careful!

My best,

Dave

[Jonnese5FD1]

I had the same issue repeatedly occurring where I was deleting blank pages but they were being duplicated.  Adobe isn't keeping up with how fast I am working.  When I click to delete the blank pages, it thinks I am dragging the pages which then duplicates more blank pages.  It wouild be nice if Adobe could implement a feature to recognize when there are blank pages in a document and have an option to auto remove them, or at least keep up with the "clicks" and not think they are "drags".  

[default47fl7hmnfusf]

Is there a way to "tun off" the drag feature?

[SubratoNamata]

Hi @default47fl7hmnfusf , Could you please share more details when you say drag feature? And how it's affecting duplication of pages. It will be helpful, if you can share screen recording for us to take a look and investigate.

Also, please share OS details and Acrobat version.

Regards,

Subrato

[lmiller945]

I'm having the same problem. I have a document I want to use as a template. I save it as a new file, close the template, then open the new file. While holding down the control key, I click on/highlight multiple pages I want to delete. Sometimes it works, sometimes it duplicates the highlighted pages. I'm not doing anything differently. 

This is incredibly annoying, not to mention a time waster. If it's a short document, deleting individual pages is not a big deal. When it's a longer document, and I have to delete large blocks of pages, then it becomes a serious problem.

Creating a "custom action wizard" as suggested above to build a workaround for a bug in the program is not an option.