Unable to extract pages in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

[LizPop]

Hi I'm unable to extract pages in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.

In the Organize Pages area, I've highlighted the pages needed but when I click Extract I get the dialog box "Please enter a valid page range"

No matter what type of page selection I try - one page, two pages, odd pages - I still get the "Please enter a valid page range"  dialog box upon hitting the Extract button.

What's the solution to this? How can I extract pages from a pdf when using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC?

[try67]

I've seen it happening when the pages had labels and it turned out that Acrobat was looking at the label instead of the physical page number, but that doesn't seem to be the case in your file (from the screenshot, at least), so it's very strange.

Are you able to select pages in the Pages panel, drag and drop them to the Desktop (or any other folder) and create a file like that?

[LizPop]

Honestly I think it's a bug in the program.  It doesn't happen all the time.  Just with certain files.  Maybe the source is the issue? Maybe the source file was something other than a .pdf originally (Artios CAD for example).  I deal with files converted into pdf's al the time and never had an issue with extracting pages until installing Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.  It's kind of a bummer

Yes - dragging the page to the desktop works.  Thanks for that solution!

[try67]

I won't surprise me, to be honest. Acrobat DC seems to be riddled with bugs of various kinds.

[LizPop]

Well I hope I don't find any more of them!!

[maxwithdax · Accepted solution]

Have you tried renumbering the pages in Acrobat?

1. In the left navigation pane, click the Page Thumbnails button to open the Page Thumbnails panel.

2. Choose Page Labels from the Options menu.

3. Select the "All" Radio button

4. Select Begin new section

5. Click okay.

6. Save document

7. Now try extracting your pages

Success??

- Dax

[LizPop]

Yup! That worked too.  Thanks for the solution.  The page number labels were numbered as numbers originally but maybe Adobe didn't recognize them as numbers.  Relabeling the old numbers with new numbers did the trick.

Thanks!

[try67]

That's good to hear! The question now is why the page labels were not displayed in the first screenshot you sent? I would still consider it a bug.

[LizPop]

Agree.  The page numbers are displayed under each page but not in the Organize Pages drop down.  Which I guess is why it didn't recognize any pages.

I never had to perform so many steps to extract pages in Adobe previously so I do agree that there's a bug somewhere.

They attempted to make Adobe fancy.  I don't need fancy, I need functional lol!!

[try67]

Try doing it via the Pages panel, instead. You can select the pages there, then right-click one of the and select Extract Pages. I believe it will automatically fill in the correct names into the dialog if you do that.

[maxwithdax]

The problem stems from inherit page number data in each of the page sets in your pdf. It looks like you have some autocad files, mixed other documents and I am betting that the page number data behind the scenes is what is causing the conflict. I agree that Acrobat should strip and reset all this data as the pdf is being created. But understanding the problem is half the battle. For sure it should fix all that on its own.

[try67]

The real solution is to let the user select whether they want to use physical page numbers or page labels in this (and other) dialogs, instead of leaving them with cryptic error messages. At the very least they should add a note to it that says something like "FYI: This function uses page labels, not page numbers".

[james_8387]

I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM

I was able to extract some pages, but then none.  After pulling my hair out trying to follow some of hte guidance here, It seems that I had way to many documents open and when I closed most of them except the ones I was working on - PROBLEM SOLVED

[Criss_Hartzell]

I've had the same problem with certain files. I am unable to extract using Tools>Organize Pages>Extract.

But, I can extract if I open the Page Thumbnails > Dropdown menu > Extract Pages. (This is NOT the same as the thumbnails under the Tools>Organize Pages menu.

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC version 2019.012.20040

[steengr]

None of the above work in a file I have. The issue is probably that it is impossible to save the file. No, there are no protection in that file.

The only workaround I have found so far is to print the file (as pdf of course). This gives me a new - most likely identical file - but with the difference that from this I can extract and so on.

Any idea what goes on in that case?

[try67]

There's no such thing as a PDF file that can't be saved. If you're viewing it it means it's already saved.

Without seeing the actual file it's very difficult to hazard a guess as to what's going on.

[Jody5C55]

I just experienced this for the first time. Nothing I did would work...until I clicked Print (printer icon) and then for the Printer chose Adobe PDF. It immediately opened the Save PDF Save As and I was able to save it. I am still curious as to why it began doing this when extracting pages. 

[VirtualSophie]

I had same issue and discovered that the file was not a tru pdf file - insted it was an xfa form, so a work around would be to print to pdf either using adobe print to pdf or microsoft print to pdf which will "flatten" the file and allow you to print only specific pages.  Only caviot I could find was that you will lose signature blocks so will have to add them back if there were any.

~not an adobe representative just a user who found a work around

[pmkm]

I'm writing this reply 22 July 23, years after this post, and with no technical insights at all ... I'm not a power user or a consultant ... I just have to use the program every day and try not to throw things at the screen. So ... just in case anyone else comes across this problem and looks here for an answer:

Having just sighed for the Nth time about this problem ... and the mega-annoying message "One or more pages is in use and can't be deleted" (when you know you've only just this second reopened the file to see if, once again, you can in fact delete two pages from it ...) ... I once AGAIN quit the program, reopened and ... found I could extract the pages. Sometimes deleting the page thumbnails individually down the left-hand side works better than using the Extract / Delete after Extracting function ... and if you've had 25 goes trying to do it the way you're supposed to be able to do it, there is some satisfaction in seeing them disappear individually. I've found the simple Quit to be the workaround for everything so far, since having to change to Pro DC. I've never reinstalled the program and clever stuff like that ... my realistic user manual says "Sigh, Quit, kick yourself for not having recently saved (if that's the case), make a coffee and wish you could still use Adobe Pro XI (but I can't on the Mac that I now have)". Hope this might help someone!

My similarly high-powered technique of quitting is also the workaround for the fabulous "Dict object expected" (yeah, right ... that's a really helpful piece of user interface when you're trying to draw a line or a box ... or frankly comment in ANY way and that pops up ...!!!) ...

If you're reading this ... I empathise hugely and hope the simple Quit works for you.