The short answer
Split on text, not on page count. Invoices vary in length, so "every 2 pages" tears them in half. Splitting wherever "Invoice Number" appears starts a new file at each invoice and keeps two-page and nine-page invoices equally intact.
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Step by step
- Find a phrase that appears once per invoice Open the export and look at the top of two different invoices. "Invoice Number", "Tax Invoice" or "Invoice Date" usually appears once each, in the same place.
- Check it does not appear twice A phrase repeated in a footer or a summary page creates a split where you do not want one. Search the document for it first and count.
- Split on that phrase Each occurrence begins a new file, so the number of files should match the number of invoices in the run.
- Check the count and spot-check two files Open the first and the last. The first should start at invoice one, the last should end at the final page with nothing missing.
- File them Each part is an ordinary PDF. If the destination has a size limit, compress them afterwards rather than before — splitting first keeps each invoice whole.
Questions
Why not just split every N pages?
Because invoices are not all the same length. A fixed page count works until one invoice runs to three pages, after which every subsequent file is wrong.
My export is a scan. Will splitting on text work?
No — there is no text in a scan to search. Run it through OCR PDF first so the pages have text to search. Ask the accounting system for the original PDF rather than a printed and rescanned copy.
Can I split on a customer name instead?
Yes, any phrase works. A customer name is useful for separating one client’s invoices from a mixed run, as long as it appears exactly once per invoice.
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