Systems and methods are provided for dynamically splitting print jobs to reduce the time taken to start printing those jobs, allowing those jobs to be printed on a wider range of printers more efficiently. One embodiment includes a print server with an interface that is able to receive a Portable Document Format (PDF) print job. The print server also includes a job controller that divides the PDF print job into segments. Dividing the PDF print job includes determining a segment size comprising a number of the logical pages to include in each segment, based on the memory footprint for the logical pages. Dividing the PDF print job also includes generating multiple segments, populating each of the segments with logical pages from the PDF print job based on the segment size, and populating each of the segments with a page tree. The job controller transmits the segments to a printer.