Splitting number of pages "1" instead splits 2 pages per doc

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
October 13, 2025
2 replies
717 views

I recently started encountering a bug where Adobe Acrobat isn't splitting PDFs into the correct number of pages that are shown in the text box.

For example the "number of pages" I'm splitting will be shown as 1, but the files it creates will have 2 pages per document; or it'll give me the error "File already has 2 pages or fewer" when I have a 2-page PDF that I'm trying to split in half. If I delete the number 1 and enter it in again it will start working correctly, but it'll revert to the previous behavior when I try to split the next PDF. I've also experienced this when the number of pages is set to 2 or more, it will sometimes split a different number of pages instead.

I've been splitting PDFs in Acrobat for years and it only just started happening. I've tried restarting Acrobat, rebooting the PC and reinstalling Acrobat to no avail. I'm using the latest desktop version 2025.001.20756 on Windows 11, and I've included screenshots of an example with a 2 page PDF that it refuses to split in half.

PDF

try67

Community Expert

As a workaround you can create an Action (Tools - Action Wizard) that executes this code and run it on your file:

for (var p=0; p<this.numPages; p++) {
	this.extractPages(p, p, this.path.replace(/\.pdf$/i, "_p"+(p+1)+".pdf"));
}

M

MaryBeth

Participant

This is happening to me, too!!!

Amal.

Legend

Hi there,

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out and sharing the detailed description.

It sounds like Acrobat’s Split PDF feature isn’t recognizing the number of pages correctly, even though you’re entering the right value. Since you’ve already tried restarting, reinstalling, and confirmed you’re on the latest version, this may be related to a recent update or a temporary glitch in the split tool’s page input logic.

Here are a few steps you can try to resolve or narrow it down:

Reset Acrobat’s Preferences as described here: https://adobe.ly/4hcfJbz
Try the “Split by Top-level Bookmarks” option (if applicable): If your document has bookmarks, try using this method to see if Acrobat is correctly identifying page breaks.
Test in a New User Account or Different Machine: This helps determine if the issue is profile-specific or system-wide.
Use Acrobat Online as a Temporary Workaround: Try using the Adobe Acrobat Online Split PDF tool https://adobe.ly/46SZ4Gz to see if the issue persists. If it works fine online, that further indicates a bug in the local desktop app.

Let us know how it goes.

~Amal

J

Jarrett M.Author

Participant

On my main desktop PC I tried resetting Acrobat's preferences using both methods in that support article (renaming folders and deleting registry keys) but it didn't fix the problem. And none of the PDFs I'm splitting have bookmarks in them so that step wasn't applicable.

Then I tried it on my laptop that had the older Acrobat version 2025.001.20643 on it, and the pages split correctly. About an hour later I noticed Acrobat had automatically updated itself to version 2025.001.20756 (the same version that's on my desktop PC) and sure enough it was no longer splitting pages correctly.

So it appears to be a new problem in the latest version of Acrobat since both PCs were able to split pages correctly with older versions of Acrobat, but now both PCs are no longer splitting pages correctly after updating to 2025.001.20756

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