How to Delete PDF Pages Using Java

In this post, you’ll learn how to delete PDF pages using our Delete PDF Page Java API. With our API, you can process up to 100 PDF files per month for free. You’ll just need to create a free account to access your API key.

This post will be especially helpful for developers working with Java in document-heavy workflows who need to programmatically remove pages from a PDF to delete confidential data, save storage space, or remove information that’s unnecessary for end users.

PSPDFKit API

Deleting PDF pages is just one of the operations possible with our 30+ PDF API tools. You can combine our deletion tool with other tools to create complex document processing workflows, such as:

• Converting MS Office files and images into PDFs before removing pages

• Removing pages from two documents before merging them

• Deleting pages and then watermarking and flattening PDFs

Once you create your account, you’ll be able to access all our PDF API tools.

Step 1 — Creating a Free Account on PSPDFKit

Go to our website, where you’ll see the page below, prompting you to create your free account.

Once you’ve created your account, you’ll be welcomed by the page below, which shows an overview of your plan details.

As you can see in the bottom-left corner, you’ll start with 100 documents to process, and you’ll be able to access all our PDF API tools.

Step 2 — Obtaining the API Key

After you’ve verified your email, you can get your API key from the dashboard. In the menu on the left, click API Keys. You’ll see the following page, which is an overview of your keys:

Copy the Live API Key, because you’ll need this for the Delete PDF Page API.

Step 3 — Setting Up Folders and Files

For this tutorial, you’ll use IntellIJ IDEA as your primary code editor. Now, create a new project called delete_pdf. You can choose any location, but make sure to select Java as the language, Gradle as the build system, and Groovy as the Gradle DSL.

Create a new directory in your project. Right-click on your project’s name and select New > Directory. From there, choose the src/main/java option. Once done, create a class file inside the src/main/java folder called processor.java, and create two folders called input_documents and processed_documents in the root folder.

After that, paste your PDF file inside the input_documents folder.

Your folder structure will look like this:

delete_pdf
├── input_documents
|    └── document.pdf
├── processed_documents
├── src
|    └── main
|        └── java
|            └── processor.java

Step 4 — Installing Dependencies

Next, you’ll install two libraries:

• OkHttp — This library makes API requests.

• JSON — This library will parse the JSON payload.

Open the build.gradle file and add the following dependencies to your project:

dependencies {
    implementation 'com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.9.2'
    implementation 'org.json:json:20210307'
}

Once done, click the Add Configuration button in IntelliJ IDEA. This will open a dropdown menu.

Next, select Application from the menu.

Now, fill the form with the required details. Most of the fields will be prefilled, but you need to select java 18 in the module field and add -cp delete_pdf.main as the main class and com.example.pspdfkit.Processor in the field below it.

To apply settings, click the Apply button.

Step 5 — Writing the Code

Now, open the processor.java file and paste the code below into it:

package com.example.pspdfkit;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.FileSystems;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption;

import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONObject;

import okhttp3.MediaType;
import okhttp3.MultipartBody;
import okhttp3.OkHttpClient;
import okhttp3.Request;
import okhttp3.RequestBody;
import okhttp3.Response;

public final class Processor {
    public static void main(final String[] args) throws IOException {
        final RequestBody body = new MultipartBody.Builder()
                .setType(MultipartBody.FORM)
                .addFormDataPart(
                        "document",
                        "document.pdf",
                        RequestBody.create(
                                new File("input_documents/document.pdf"),
                                MediaType.parse("application/pdf")
                        )
                )
                .addFormDataPart(
                        "instructions",
                        new JSONObject()
                                .put("parts", new JSONArray()
                                        .put(new JSONObject()
                                                .put("file", "document")
                                                .put("pages", new JSONObject()
                                                        .put("end", 2)
                                                )
                                        )
                                        .put(new JSONObject()
                                                .put("file", "document")
                                                .put("pages", new JSONObject()
                                                        .put("start", 4)
                                                )
                                        )
                                ).toString()
                )
                .build();

        final Request request = new Request.Builder()
                .url("https://api.pspdfkit.com/build")
                .method("POST", body)
                .addHeader("Authorization", "Bearer YOUR API KEY HERE")
                .build();

        final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient()
                .newBuilder()
                .build();

        final Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();

        if (response.isSuccessful()) {
            Files.copy(
                    response.body().byteStream(),
                    FileSystems.getDefault().getPath("processed_documents/result.pdf"),
                    StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING
            );
        } else {
            // Handle the error.
            throw new IOException(response.body().string());
        }
    }
}

ℹ️ Note: Make sure to replace YOUR_API_KEY_HERE with your API key.

Code Explanation

In the code above, you’re importing all the packages required to run the code and creating a class called processor. In the main function, you’re first creating the request body for the API call that contains all the instructions for deleting the PDF pages.

You’re then calling the API using OkHttpClient and checking the status of the response. If the response is successful, you’re storing result.pdf in the processed_documents folder.

Output

To execute the code, click the Run button (which is a little green arrow). This is next to the field that says Processor, which is where you set the configuration.

On successful execution, you’ll see the new PDF with the removed pages in the processed_documents folder. The folder structure should look like this:

delete_pdf
├── input_documents
|    └── document.pdf
├── processed_documents
|    └── result.pdf
├── src
|    └── main
|        └── java
|            └── processor.java

Final Words

In this post, you learned how to easily and seamlessly delete pages from a PDF document for your Java application using our Delete PDF Page API.

You can integrate these functions into your existing applications to easily remove pages from PDFs. With the same API token, you can also perform other operations, such as merging documents into a single PDF, adding watermarks, and more. To get started with a free trial, sign up here.