PDF XChange Forum

Hi all,

I may be missing something obvious, but is there any way to move/cut selected pages from one open document to another? For background, I am working with pdfs consisting of scanned paper copies, and trying to sort the electronic copies into a more logical order in several smaller pdfs.

At the moment, I can select various pages in the thumbnails view and drag and drop them to the thumbnail pane of another document. However, this copies the selected pages to the second pdf, leaving the pages in the first pdf as they were. I want to move those pages, i.e. deleting/cutting from the first doc and creating/pasting in the 2nd.

I've looked for options in the settings, and I've tried holding keys like shift, Ctrl, Alt etc... whilst dragging, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this by drag and drop.

At the moment I am copying the pages from 1 doc to the other and then deleting the pages in the first, but this is messy if I accidentally deselect the pages I've just copied across. I can move the pages by keyboard or menu by selecting cut in the first doc and paste in the second, but it's less intuitive in terms of making sure the pages are inserted where I need them, and hence takes longer.

Am I missing a way to move pages between docs by drag and drop, or is this not possible?

thanks

Hello Ted Barnes,

Welcome to our forums.
Yes - while using the thumbnails you can only copy pages, but there is a "Move Pages" command in the Organize tab: Which should perform the task you need.

Regards,
Stefan

Thanks Stefan.

As far as I can see though, the move pages dialogue window only allows you to move pages within the same document? I can't see any option there to select another pdf/open document?

On that point, many years ago, I was sure when extracting pages there was an option to "extract to" an already open PDF, giving options where in that document you wanted the pages to go to (before/after first page/last page/specify page no., etc...).

That functionality of extract to open doc would also help with what I am trying to do, but seems to have gone (unless my memory is playing tricks on me).

Now the extract pages dialogue has the first 2 output options as "extract all pages to a new document" and "save all extracted pages to one file". I'm not sure what the difference between those 2 is [edit: - ah - the first literally creates a new, unsaved doc. The 2nd option does the same but saves the file at the same time], and I can't see a way to append extracted pages to an existing document?

again, thanks for the quick reply

Hello Ted,

Ahh apologies - I was 1/2 asleep at the time I posted earlier!
Indeed the Move Pages operation only works in the current file.

I've just had a quick look and it would appear that all our operations that add pages to a target file from a source leave the source file intact. This is most likely for protection from accidental move of pages, and then e.g. "deleting" the target file as it was only a test - effectively deleting pages from the source file as well.
So it would seem like you need to do this as a two step process - you select and insert the pages in the new document, and then remove them from the source one. Alternatively - you can drag and drop the pages to your desktop - this will make a new file. This way your selection in the original file should remain - so that you can remove the pages easier and without risking dropping the selection, and you can then use that 'temp' file from your desktop to insert the pages in the new file.

Regards,
Stefan