Manual split

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Prerequisites

• A source PDF already stored in Box.
• A destination folder in Box that your app can write to.
• The page ranges for each output document.

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What you configure

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Example

[
  { "start": 1, "end": 5 },
  { "start": 6, "end": 14 }
]

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Create a manual split job

curl -L 'https://api.box.com/2.0/document_splits' \
     -H 'Accept: application/json; version=1' \
     -H 'box-version: 2026.0' \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
     -d '{
       "source_file_id": "21040505661",
       "destination_folder_id": "10720019396",
       "input_source": "api",
       "split_input": {
         "split_type": "manual",
         "split_definition": [
           { "start": 1, "end": 5 },
           { "start": 7, "end": 9 }
         ]
       }
     }'

{
  "id": "11678",
  "type": "document_split"
}

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Best practices

• Use page ranges that do not overlap, so no page appears in more than one output document.
• Order your ranges by page number to match the reading order of the source PDF.
• Choose a manual split whenever the page numbers are already known, because the results are deterministic.
• Give destination folders meaningful names, such as Splits / Customer A / 2026-07, so reviewers can find the output quickly.

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When to use a smart split instead

• Break points are marked by QR codes or separator pages.
• You need to keep only certain types of content, such as signatures and ID proofs.
• Page ranges vary from file to file and are easier to describe than to calculate.