PDF Tools

Performs page-level operations on PDF files: splitting, extracting, deleting, rotating, combining, and converting documents.

Overview

The PDF Tools node exposes six operations behind a single node. Split, Extract, Delete, and Rotate act on one PDF file at a time, Combine merges an array of PDF and image files into one document, and Convert turns a PDF into a multi-page TIFF or an image into a PDF.

Split, Extract, Delete, and Rotate each support two modes:

• Manual: Specify pages or ranges directly (e.g., 1-3, 5)
• Smart: Describe what you want in plain language and let AI detect the pages

Use it to:

• Split a batch of invoices into separate files
• Extract only the pages you need from a report
• Remove blank pages or cover sheets
• Straighten a scanned packet whose pages came in at different orientations
• Merge multiple PDFs into a single document
• Turn scanned images into a PDF, on their own or alongside other PDFs
• Deliver documents to document management, imaging, or fax systems that only accept TIFF

Parameters

The available parameters depend on the selected Operation.

Parameter	Description	Required
Operation	Split, Extract, Delete, Rotate, Combine, or Convert	Yes
File Destination	Destination folder for the processed file(s)	Yes

Operation

Selects which PDF operation to run. The remaining parameters change based on this choice.

• Split, Extract, Delete, Rotate, Convert — take a single File
• Combine — takes an array of PDF Files

Split

Splits one PDF into multiple files.

Parameter	Description	Required
File	PDF file to process	Yes
Split Mode	Manual or Smart (default Smart)	Yes
Split Points	Start a new file at these pages (e.g., 5, 9)	In Manual mode
Split Instructions	Describe how to split — e.g. separate each invoice	In Smart mode

The File parameter expects a single PDF file, typically from an upstream node:

{{$item.data.file}}

Batching a long document

Smart mode reads every page of a document to decide where each new file begins, which is why it turns away documents over 2,000 pages. When a long file is made of short documents, @split_every finds the same boundaries by reading a few pages per batch instead. Write it on its own line, above the instructions:

@split_every:200,3
separate each invoice

Cut this into batches of about 200 pages, on a document boundary, where no document runs longer than 3 pages.

Value	Meaning
First number	How many pages you want in each output file, approximately
Second number	The longest a single document inside the file can run

The second number is what makes it work. If no document is longer than 3 pages, then any 3 consecutive pages contain a boundary, so the split point near each batch mark can be found without reading the pages in between. A 5,000-page file cut this way reads about 70 pages rather than 5,000.

Batches come out within one document's length of the size asked for. If no boundary turns up near a batch mark — the mark landed inside a document that started just before it — that batch runs on to the next mark rather than being cut in the wrong place, so it comes out about twice the size with its documents whole.

Because only the sampled pages are read, the 2,000-page limit and the billed page count both apply to those pages rather than to the whole document — so a 20,000-page file in batches of 200 is within the limit and is charged for what it read.

Extract

Keeps only the specified pages and discards the rest.

Parameter	Description	Required
File	PDF file to process	Yes
Extract Mode	Manual or Smart (default Smart)	Yes
Extract Ranges	Page ranges to extract (e.g., 1-3, 4-5)	In Manual mode
Extract Instructions	Describe pages to keep — e.g. keep all pages with tables	In Smart mode
Include Page Numbers	Add pagesKept and pagesDeleted to the output (default off). Under Advanced options	No

Delete

Removes the specified pages and keeps the rest.

Parameter	Description	Required
File	PDF file to process	Yes
Delete Mode	Manual or Smart (default Smart)	Yes
Delete Ranges	Page ranges to delete (e.g., 1, 4-5)	In Manual mode
Delete Instructions	Describe pages to remove — e.g. delete all blank pages, remove cover sheets	In Smart mode
Include Page Numbers	Add pagesKept and pagesDeleted to the output (default off). Under Advanced options	No

Rotate

Turns pages so they read upright. Page count is unchanged, and outlines, annotations and metadata are preserved.

Parameter	Description	Required
File	PDF file to process	Yes
Rotate Mode	Manual or Smart (default Smart)	Yes
Pages to Rotate	Pages to turn (e.g., 3, 8-10) — blank means every page	In Manual mode
Rotation	90° clockwise, 180°, or 270° clockwise	In Manual mode

Smart mode has nothing to configure — it looks at every page in the document.

Rotation is always applied relative to how the page already sits, so a page that arrives sideways ends up where you expect rather than being reset to a fixed angle.

tip

Smart mode shows every page to AI to decide which way up it reads, and each page costs one AI action. Use Manual mode when you already know which pages are sideways.

Smart mode judges orientation by the direction the text runs, not by the page's shape. A wide landscape page whose text already reads left to right is upright and is left alone.

Combine

Merges multiple PDF and image files into a single document.

Parameter	Description	Required
PDF Files	Array of PDF, JPEG, PNG, or TIFF files to combine	Yes

note

Unlike the other operations, Combine takes an array of files rather than a single File. An expression that resolves to a single file will not work here — the input must be an array.

Files are combined in the order they appear in the array. Use Aggregate to collect files from multiple items first:

{{$item.data.files}}

At least one file must be provided.

Images

JPEG, PNG, and TIFF files can be mixed in with PDFs. Each image becomes one page, and a multi-page TIFF becomes one page per frame, in the position the image holds in the array. The file's contents decide its type, not its extension, so a PDF saved as .jpg is still read as a PDF. Other file types, such as GIF, BMP, WebP, HEIC, and Office documents, are rejected.

To convert a single image to PDF, use Convert with Image to PDF instead.

An image page takes its size from the image's own resolution rather than a standard paper size, so a photo without resolution information can come out as a larger page than the PDFs around it.

Convert

Converts one file to another format. Two conversions are supported:

• PDF to TIFF: every page of the PDF is rendered at 300 DPI into a single multi-page .tif file
• Image to PDF: a JPEG, PNG or TIFF image becomes a PDF, one page per image (a multi-page TIFF becomes a multi-page PDF). The image is embedded as-is, without resampling, and each page is sized from the image's own resolution, so a 300 DPI letter-size scan becomes a letter-size page

Parameter	Description	Required
File	PDF or image file to convert	Yes
Conversion	PDF to TIFF (default) or Image to PDF	Yes
Color Mode	Color mode of the TIFF pages	In PDF to TIFF mode

Color Mode

Mode	Output
Black & White (default)	1-bit pages with CCITT Group 4 compression. Smallest files; best for text
Grayscale	8-bit grayscale pages with LZW compression
Color	24-bit RGB pages with LZW compression. Largest files

All modes render at a fixed 300 DPI.

The converted file keeps the input's name with the extension replaced by .tif or .pdf (statement.pdf becomes statement.tif; receipt.jpg becomes receipt.pdf).

Each conversion accepts one kind of input. These send the item to the node's error output rather than passing the file through:

• PDF to TIFF: the input file is not a PDF, the PDF has more than 500 pages (5,000 in Black & White), or the TIFF would be larger than 4GB (large scanned documents in Grayscale or Color; use Black & White or fewer pages)
• Image to PDF: the input file is not a JPEG, PNG or TIFF image

Settings

Setting	Description
Execution Mode	Once per item (default) or Once
Output Mode	How to output results when running once
Batch Size	Items to process concurrently (default 5)
Stop on Error	Stop workflow on failure

Output

Each operation outputs one item per resulting file. Split may produce several output files, and each of its items includes a split index:

{
  "file": {
    "type": "fileData",
    "name": "document-1.pdf",
    "fileInfo": { "type": "..." }
  },
  "splitIndex": 1,
  "totalSplits": 3
}

Extract and Delete each output a single item containing the resulting file. With Include Page Numbers turned on under Advanced options, the item also lists the source pages it kept and left out, as arrays of page numbers:

{
  "file": {
    "type": "fileData",
    "name": "document_extracted.pdf",
    "fileInfo": { "type": "..." }
  },
  "pagesKept": [1, 2, 3, 5],
  "pagesDeleted": [4, 6]
}

pagesKept are the pages of the source document now in the output file (the extracted pages for Extract, the remaining pages for Delete). pagesDeleted are the rest. A side with no pages is an empty array, []. With the flag off, the item has only file.

Rotate, Combine, and Convert each output a single item containing only the resulting file:

{
  "file": {
    "type": "fileData",
    "name": "document_rotated.pdf",
    "fileInfo": { "type": "..." }
  }
}

Access in expressions:

• File object: {{$item.data.file}}
• Position in output set (Split only): {{$item.data.splitIndex}}
• Total number of files produced (Split only): {{$item.data.totalSplits}}
• Pages in the output file (Extract and Delete with Include Page Numbers on): {{$item.data.pagesKept}}
• Pages left out (Extract and Delete with Include Page Numbers on): {{$item.data.pagesDeleted}}

The page arrays work directly as page input: {{$item.data.pagesDeleted}} is accepted in Extract Ranges, Delete Ranges, and Pages to Rotate.

Examples

Split Invoices into Separate Files

[Google Drive (invoice PDF)] → [PDF Tools (Split, Smart)] → [Copy File]

Use Smart mode with instructions like separate each invoice to detect split points automatically.

Extract Specific Pages

[OneDrive Trigger] → [PDF Tools (Extract, Manual)] → [Send Gmail]

Set Extract Ranges to 1-3 to keep only the first three pages.

Remove Blank Pages

[OCR PDF] → [PDF Tools (Delete, Smart)] → [Copy File]

Use Smart mode with delete all blank pages to clean up scanned documents.

Combine Multiple Reports

[Google Drive (reports folder)] → [Aggregate (collect files)] → [PDF Tools (Combine)] → [Send Gmail]

Convert Scanned Receipts to a PDF

[Outlook Trigger (JPEG receipts)] → [Aggregate (collect files)] → [PDF Tools (Combine)] → [Copy File]

The receipt photos come out as one PDF, a page per receipt, in the order they were collected.

Convert Email Attachments to TIFF

[Lido Mailbox Trigger] → [Split (attachments)] → [PDF Tools (Convert, PDF to TIFF)] → [Copy File (TIFF folder)]

Extract Data from Photographed Receipts

[Lido Mailbox Trigger] → [Split (attachments)] → [PDF Tools (Convert, Image to PDF)] → [Data Extractor]

Tips

• Split, Extract, Delete, Rotate, and Convert work on a single file; Combine works on an array of files
• Smart mode is the default for Split, Extract, Delete, and Rotate — describe the pages in plain language and AI detects them
• Rotate's Smart mode needs no description at all: it works out which pages are sideways on its own
• Manual mode expects page numbers or ranges (e.g., 1-3, 5); Split Points mark where each new file begins
• Use Aggregate before Combine to gather files from multiple items into an array
• Combine accepts JPEG, PNG, and TIFF images alongside PDFs; to convert a single image, use Convert
• Turn on Include Page Numbers under Advanced options and Extract and Delete report pagesKept and pagesDeleted as page arrays, so {{$item.data.pagesDeleted}} can go straight into another Extract's Extract Ranges to recover the pages left out. If nothing was left out, pagesDeleted is [] and that Extract errors, so check its length with an If node first
• For Convert, Black & White suits most text documents; switch to Grayscale or Color when the pages contain photos or colored markings you need to keep, since those TIFFs are much larger
• Convert's Image to PDF sizes the page from the image's DPI metadata; an image with none is treated as 96 DPI
• If a stream feeding Convert may contain other file types, filter them out first with an If or Filter node
• These are long-running operations for large documents
• Use Rename File afterward to set meaningful output filenames
• For a long document of short ones, @split_every batches it without reading every page