How to Automatically Split PDFs by HAWB Number Using Python — A Complete Step-by-Step Guide

🧭 Introduction

In logistics, shipping, and freight forwarding, large PDF documents often contain multiple House Air Waybill (HAWB) sets — each consisting of two or more pages. Manually splitting these into individual files can be tedious and error-prone.

This guide will show you how to automate PDF splitting by HAWB Number using a simple Python script. You’ll learn how to extract text, detect HAWB numbers like HAWB Number: 9221038752, and save each set as a separate, correctly named PDF — all in seconds.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a fully automated workflow for handling multi-page logistics documents efficiently.

🚀 Why Automate PDF Splitting by HAWB?

If you work in air cargo, freight forwarding, or documentation processing, you’ve probably faced this issue:

• A single PDF contains multiple shipment sets.
• Each set is two pages — invoice + airwaybill.
• Every set has a unique HAWB number.
• Manually splitting and renaming 20 or more sets is slow and repetitive.

With Python, you can split, detect, and rename all sets in one go — accurately and automatically.

🧰 Tools and Requirements

To complete this tutorial, you’ll need:

Tool	Description
🐍 Python 3.x	Programming language used for automation
📄 PyPDF2	Python library for reading and writing PDF files
🧮 Regular Expressions (re)	Used to find HAWB numbers in text
💻 A Searchable PDF	PDF with selectable text (not scanned)

⚙️ Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Install Python and PyPDF2

If you don’t already have Python, download it from python.org/downloads and install it. Then open your terminal or Command Prompt and install the required library:

pip install PyPDF2

Step 2: Prepare Your PDF File

Place your PDF in a known folder. Example path:

C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\Data Entry\Trick\Temp work\New folder\pdf\20pagespdf.pdf

Each HAWB set contains 2 pages, and each set includes a line such as:

HAWB Number: 9221038752

Step 3: Create the Python Script

Open Notepad, VS Code, or any code editor and paste this script. Save it as split_hawb_sets.py:

import os
import re
from PyPDF2 import PdfReader, PdfWriter

# --- CONFIG ---
input_pdf = r"C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\Data Entry\Trick\Temp work\New folder\pdf\20pagespdf.pdf"
pages_per_set = 2  # each HAWB set = 2 pages
output_folder = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(input_pdf), "output_sets")

# --- Create output folder ---
os.makedirs(output_folder, exist_ok=True)

# --- Read the PDF ---
reader = PdfReader(input_pdf)
total_pages = len(reader.pages)
print(f"Total pages: {total_pages}")

# --- Process each 2-page set ---
for i in range(0, total_pages, pages_per_set):
    writer = PdfWriter()
    set_pages = reader.pages[i:i + pages_per_set]
    text = ""

    # Extract text from both pages
    for page in set_pages:
        text += page.extract_text() or ""

    # Find HAWB number using regex
    match = re.search(r"HAWB\s*Number:\s*(\d+)", text)
    if match:
        hawb_number = match.group(1)
        filename = f"HAWB_{hawb_number}.pdf"
    else:
        set_num = (i // pages_per_set) + 1
        filename = f"Set_{set_num:02d}.pdf"

    # Write the set
    for page in set_pages:
        writer.add_page(page)

    output_path = os.path.join(output_folder, filename)
    with open(output_path, "wb") as f:
        writer.write(f)

    print(f"✅ Saved: {output_path}")

print("\nAll sets split successfully!")
print(f"Output folder: {output_folder}")

Step 4: Run the Script

Open your Command Prompt and run:

python "C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\Data Entry\Trick\Temp work\New folder\pdf\split_hawb_sets.py"

When the script finishes, you’ll find a new folder named:

output_sets

containing your separated and renamed files, such as:

• HAWB_9221038752.pdf
• HAWB_9221038753.pdf
• HAWB_9_221038754.pdf
• ...

🧩 How It Works — Step-by-Step Explanation

1. Read and Count PDF Pages: The script uses PdfReader to open your PDF and determine how many pages it contains.
2. Divide into 2-Page Sets: Using a simple loop, it processes every two pages as one shipment set.
3. Extract Text: It extracts text from those two pages using extract_text().
4. Find HAWB Number: The line HAWB Number: 9221038752 is detected using a regular expression (re.search()), which looks for a number pattern following the phrase “HAWB Number”.
5. Rename and Save: Each set is then saved as a new PDF file named after the detected HAWB number. If no number is found, it assigns a generic name like Set_01.pdf.

🎯 Benefits of This Automation

• ✅ Saves Time: Split and rename 20 or 200 pages in seconds.
• ✅ Error-Free: No more manual typing or page selection mistakes.
• ✅ Consistent Naming: All PDFs are named in a clean, uniform format.
• ✅ Reusable: You can modify it for other patterns (like Invoice No, Shipment ID, etc.).

🧠 Pro Tips

• If your PDF pages per set vary, you can change pages_per_set = 2 to another number.
• If you want a CSV report of extracted HAWB numbers and filenames, you can easily add one line using Python’s csv module.
• Works best on text-based PDFs (not scanned images). For scanned PDFs, add OCR using pytesseract.

🏁 Conclusion

Automating document splitting can save hours of manual work in logistics and data processing. Using a simple Python script and the PyPDF2 library, you can extract, split, and rename multi-page PDFs by HAWB Number in one automated workflow.

Whether you handle 10 or 1,000 sets, this method ensures speed, accuracy, and professional output every time.

Keywords: HAWB PDF Split Python, Split PDF by HAWB Number, Python PDF automation, Air Waybill PDF Processing, PyPDF2 tutorial, Logistics document automation, Extract text from PDF Python, Rename PDFs automatically Python