Split a Multi-Page PDF into Single-Page Files with PDFtk

PDFtk makes this a one-liner. Here's everything you need.

1/ Install

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt update && sudo apt install pdftk

Arch Linux

yay -S pdftk

pdftk document.pdf burst

This drops one file per page in the current folder: pg_0001.pdf, pg_0002.pdf, etc.

Custom name and output folder:

mkdir pages
pdftk document.pdf burst output pages/page_%02d.pdf

%02d = zero-padded page number → page_01.pdf, page_02.pdf…

Note: PDFtk also generates a doc_data.txt metadata file alongside the pages. Safe to delete if you don't need it: rm doc_data.txt