Tip: Merging PDFs
At first glance, this might seem like my most boring blog post title yet. Merging PDFs? Are you serious?
Yes I am.
How many times have you had the pleasure of having single page PDFs - perhaps of a musical score - or forms that have been handed in by students - and you’ve thought to yourself “I really would love to put all of these PDFs in one file so that I could arrange them in the correct order!”. I have - MANY times. While PDFs are really great for a variety of reasons, they are different than word processing files. They are essentially images and can be a little difficult to deal with unless you have Adobe Acrobat Pro.
If you Google “how do I merge (or combine) PDFs, you will find LOTS of “free” software and paid software that will let you do that, but I am here to tell you that you don’t need to buy ANYTHING to merge PDF pages. That functionality is already built in to your existing PDF viewer on a Mac and PCs have some great, free third party apps that will do it for you. On a Mac, Preview is the software that lets you view PDFs, as well as mark them up, and MERGE multiple PDF pages into one PDF. On a PC, you’ll need to use a free third party app. The easiest of all of these is the Adobe Online Tool. The following is a step-by-step guide on how to merge or combine PDF pages into one PDF document:
Mac Users
Open a PDF in Preview.
Choose View > Thumbnails to show page thumbnails in the sidebar.
To indicate where to insert the other document, select a page thumbnail.
Choose Edit > Insert > Page from File.*
From the file dialog, select the PDF that you want to add, then click Open.
PC Users
As stated above, Windows does not have a built-in PDF merge or combine function. You’ll need to use a third party app to do it, and the best one (IMHO) is the Adobe Online Tool. You can actually use the Adobe Online Tool if you'‘re a Mac user as well. You do need to create a free account with an email address. Here are the steps to follow:
Click the Select a file button above, or drag and drop files into the drop zone.
Select the files you want to merge using the Acrobat PDF combiner tool.
Reorder the files if needed.
Click Merge files.
Download the merged PDF. Sign in to organize individual pages or share the file.
I hope that helps! I know that this is a function that I use OFTEN and I sometimes forget just how easy it is to do.