How to delete PDF pages using JavaScript

In this post, you’ll learn how to delete PDF pages using our delete PDF page JavaScript API. With our API, you receive 200 credits with the free plan. Different operations on a document consume different amounts of credits, so the number of PDF documents you can generate may vary. You’ll just need to create a free account(opens in a new tab) to access your API key.

Why delete PDF pages?

Deleting PDF pages is essential for document workflows that require removing sensitive or unnecessary content. Common use cases include:

• Data privacy compliance — Remove pages containing confidential information before sharing documents externally, ensuring sensitive data doesn’t leave your organization.
• Storage optimization — Delete unnecessary pages to reduce file size and cloud storage costs, which is especially important for high-volume document processing.
• Document preparation — Remove draft pages, cover sheets, or annotations before final distribution to clients or stakeholders.
• Automated processing — Filter out specific page ranges as part of backend document workflows, streamlining document management pipelines.
• Content curation — Extract relevant sections by removing everything else, creating focused documents for specific audiences or purposes.

The delete PDF page API automates this process in your workflow.

Nutrient DWS Processor 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 Nutrient

Go to our website(opens in a new tab), 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 a page showing an overview of your plan details.

You’ll start with 200 credits 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

Now, create a folder called delete_pdf and open it in a code editor. For this tutorial, you’ll use VS Code as your primary code editor. Next, create two folders inside delete_pdf and name them input_documents and processed_documents.

Then, in the root folder, delete_pdf, create a file called processor.js. This is where you’ll keep your code.

Your folder structure will look like this:

delete_pdf
├── input_documents
├── processed_documents
└── processor.js

Step 4 — Installing dependencies

To get started deleting PDF pages, you first need to install the following dependencies:

• axios(opens in a new tab) — This package is used for making REST API calls.
• Form-Data(opens in a new tab) — This package is used for creating form data.

Use the command below to install both of them:

npm install axios
npm install form-data

Step 5 — Writing the code

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

// This code requires Node.js. Do not run this code directly in a web browser.

const axios = require('axios')
const FormData = require('form-data')
const fs = require('fs')

const formData = new FormData()
formData.append('instructions', JSON.stringify({
  parts: [
    {
      file: "document",
      pages: {
        end: 2
      }
    },
    {
      file: "document",
      pages: {
        start: 4
      }
    }
  ]
}))
formData.append('document', fs.createReadStream('input_documents/document.pdf'))

(async () => {
  try {
    const response = await axios.post('https://api.nutrient.io/build', formData, {
      headers: formData.getHeaders({
        'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'
      }),
      responseType: "stream"
    })

    response.data.pipe(fs.createWriteStream("processed_documents/result.pdf"))
  } catch (e) {
    const errorString = await streamToString(e.response.data)
    console.log(errorString)
  }
})()

function streamToString(stream) {
  const chunks = []
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    stream.on("data", (chunk) => chunks.push(Buffer.from(chunk)))
    stream.on("error", (err) => reject(err))
    stream.on("end", () => resolve(Buffer.concat(chunks).toString("utf8")))
  })
}

Code explanation

After importing all the required packages, you created a FormData object that contains all the instructions for the API to process. These instructions keep pages 1–3 (indices 0–2) and page 5 onward (index 4+), effectively deleting page 4 (index 3).

You then read the input document using the fs.createReadStream function.

Finally, you used axios to make the API call, and the response was stored in the processed_documents folder.

Output

To run the code, use the command below:

node processor.js

On the successful execution of the code, you’ll see a new processed file named result.pdf in the processed_documents folder.

The folder structure will look like this:

delete_pdf
├── input_documents
|    └── document.pdf
├── processed_documents
|    └── result.pdf
└── processor.js

Additional resources

Explore more ways to work with Nutrient API:

• Postman collection — Test API endpoints directly in Postman
• Zapier integration — Automate document workflows without code
• MCP Server — PDF automation for LLM applications
• JavaScript client — Official JavaScript library

Conclusion

In this post, you learned how to delete pages from a PDF document for your JavaScript application using our delete PDF page API.

You can integrate our PDF API functions into your existing applications to 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(opens in a new tab) here.

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