Turn an imposed booklet back into a normal PDF
You have a PDF whose pages are imposed — front cover beside back cover, and so on inward — and you need it sequential again: to read on screen, to re-edit, to send to someone who shouldn't have to fold paper to make sense of it. This extracts each half of each sheet as its own page, in reading order, using the exact inverse of the booklet pairing the imposer on this site uses — the two tools cannot disagree about where a page sits. Runs in your browser; the file never uploads.
Built as the exact inverse of the booklet imposer, so the two tools cannot disagree about where a page sits.
What it does to your pages
An imposed booklet of N sheets carries 2N PDF pages, each holding two book-pages side by side. The de-imposer resolves each reading page to its sheet, side and half — the pairing table run backwards — and draws that half onto a new page of its own. Vectors stay vectors, text stays text; nothing is rasterised, so the output is as sharp as the input and re-imposes cleanly later.
De-impose, split, or re-impose?
| You have | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A fold-and-staple booklet PDF | The de-imposer | Re-orders AND halves — page 1, 2, 3 restored at half size. |
| Scanned spreads (an open book, photographed) | The spread splitter | Just cuts every page down the middle in reading order — no pairing knowledge. |
| A sequential PDF that must become a booklet | The booklet imposer | The forward direction — this tool's mirror twin. |
Questions people actually ask
Does my PDF get uploaded anywhere?
No. The halves are extracted in your browser's memory and handed straight back as a download. A manuscript or someone's private zine is exactly the kind of file that should not cross a network.
My file is a 2-up cut-stack imposition, not a booklet.
Cut-stack de-imposition needs to know the stack height — it's a printing-press concept that doesn't map to a single book. Split the halves with the spread splitter, then sort the pages in any PDF editor.
Why are the output pages half size?
Because each was half of an imposed sheet. Scale up when printing if you need the original trim back — the proportions survive exactly.
Can it de-impose a scanned booklet?
Yes, if the scan is straight and one sheet per page — the geometry only needs the two halves separable. Skewed scans still work; the pages will carry the skew, honestly.
This is the imposer that prints WhatsApp chat books, run backwards.
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