Sometimes, when dealing with PDF documents, there is a need to split a page into different sections based on content or layout. For instance, splitting a mixed-layout page with both horizontal and vertical content into two separate parts. This type of splitting is not commonly available in basic PDF management functions but can be important for academic papers, magazine ads, or mixed-layout designs. This article explains how to use Spire.PDF for Python to perform horizontal or vertical PDF page splitting.

Install Spire.PDF for Python

This scenario requires Spire.PDF for Python and plum-dispatch v1.7.4. They can be easily installed in your Windows through the following pip command.

pip install Spire.PDF

If you are unsure how to install, please refer to this tutorial: How to Install Spire.PDF for Python on Windows

Split PDF Page Horizontally or Vertically with Python

Spire.PDF for Python not only supports splitting a PDF document into multiple PDF documents, but also allows splitting a specific page within a PDF into two or more pages. Here are the detailed steps to split a page:

• Create an instance of the PdfDocument class.
• Load the source PDF document using the PdfDocument.LoadFromFile() method.
• Retrieve the page(s) to be split using PdfDocument.Pages[].
• Create a new PDF document and set its page margins to 0.
• Set the width or height of the new document to half of the source document.
• Add a page to the new PDF document using the PdfDocument.Pages.Add() method.
• Create a template for the source document's page using the PdfPageBase.CreateTemplate() method.
• Draw the content of the source page onto the new page using the PdfTemplate.Draw() method.
• Save the split document using the PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.

from spire.pdf.common import *
from spire.pdf import *

# Create a PdfDocument object
pdf = PdfDocument()

# Load the PDF document
pdf.LoadFromFile("Terms of service.pdf")

# Get the first page
page = pdf.Pages[0]

# Create a new PDF document and remove the page margins
newpdf = PdfDocument()
newpdf.PageSettings.Margins.All=0

# Horizontal splitting: Set the width of the new document's page to be the same as the width of the first page of the original document, and the height to half of the first page's height
newpdf.PageSettings.Width=page.Size.Width
newpdf.PageSettings.Height=page.Size.Height/2

'''
# Vertical splitting: Set the width of the new document's page to be half of the width of the first page of the original document, and the height to the same as the first page's height
newpdf.PageSettings.Width=page.Size.Width/2
newpdf.PageSettings.Height=page.Size.Height
'''

# Add a new page to the new PDF document
newPage = newpdf.Pages.Add()

# Set the text layout format
format = PdfTextLayout()
format.Break=PdfLayoutBreakType.FitPage
format.Layout=PdfLayoutType.Paginate

# Create a template based on the first page of the original document and draw it onto the new page of the new document, automatically paginating when the page is filled
page.CreateTemplate().Draw(newPage, PointF(0.0, 0.0), format)

# Save the document
newpdf.SaveToFile("HorizontalSplitting.pdf")

# Close the objects
newpdf.Close()
pdf.Close()

The result of horizontal splitting is as follows:

The result of vertical splitting is as follows:

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