How to merge PDF documents
You have downloaded some documents in PDF format from the Internet, would you like to combine them into a single file but you don’t know how to do it? Don’t worry, this is an extremely simple operation to complete. And you don’t need any paid program to do that.
All you need are small applications that are available for free online (or even already on your computer!) And five minutes of free time. For the rest… there wouldn’t even be too much to explain: in most cases just select the files to be merged, drag them into the window of the program you are using to merge them and click on a button. That’s all, and the output document is generated in a matter of seconds.
Think, there are also online services that allow you to edit, convert and above all merge PDF documents directly from the browser. Also in this case just select the files to “merge”, drag them into the browser program you are using and click on a button. The processing of the output document takes a little more time than desktop applications, as there is a need to load the documents to convert online, but it is still very fast. For more details read on.
PDFtk Free (Windows)
On Windows you can merge multiple PDFs into one using PDFtk Free, a small free application that allows you to merge and split PDF documents in just a few clicks. It is also available in a Pro version (paid) that includes additional functions for rotating pages, adding passwords to documents and more, but for what you have to do you just need the free version.
To download PDFtk Free on your computer, connect to the program’s website and click on the green button Download PDFtk Free! located in the middle of the page. Then open the pdftk_free-2.02 -win-setup.exe file you just downloaded on your computer and click first on the Yes button and then on Next . Then put the check mark next to I accept the agreement and complete the setup by first clicking on Next (four consecutive times) and then on Install and Finish.
At this point, open PDFtk Free, click on the Add PDF button located in the side menu of the application and select the PDF files you want to merge. Then arrange the documents in the order you prefer (just click on the PDF icons and move them with the mouse) and click on the Create PDF button located at the bottom left to get your merged PDF.
If you want, by double clicking in the Pages to copy field located next to the icon of each PDF you can specify a range of pages or specific pages to keep in the output document (eg “3-6” to keep only the pages from 3 to 6 or “2,3” to keep only pages 2 and 3).
Preview (OS X)
If you use a Mac you can merge PDF documents using Preview, the software for viewing photos and, in fact, PDF files included “standard” in OS X. All you have to do is open the first PDF to use in the document output and activate the display of thumbnails from the View menu located at the top left.
At this point, drag all the PDFs to be merged into the Preview sidebar, sort them in the order you prefer (by moving their thumbnails with the mouse) and invoke the Print command from the File menu . In the window that opens, then set the Save as PDF item in the PDF drop-down menu located at the bottom left and choose the folder in which to save the final document.
If Preview seems a little too cumbersome to you and you are looking for an easier solution to merge your PDFs on Mac, check out PDF Toolkit + . It is an all-rounder application for PDF editing that allows you to split and merge documents, extract images from them, compress them and much more. It costs € 1.99 but I assure you it is worth every penny of its price. You can download it directly from the Mac App Store.
Online Converters
Do you prefer not to install programs on your PC? No problem. There are online services that allow you to edit, convert and merge PDF files directly from the browser and today I’m here to tell you a couple of the best.
Just a small premise before starting: the online services I am about to tell you about protect the privacy of users by deleting, a few hours after uploading, all the files that are stored on their servers. However, I do not recommend using them for those documents that contain sensitive information.
It is a generic recommendation, a simple rule of common sense – it is always better to keep sensitive data locally, or rather, where you have direct control over what happens – but it seemed only right to talk about it in this circumstance. And now let’s take action!
Online2PDF
An excellent online service dedicated to PDF files that I recommend you always keep in your favorites is Online2PDF . With Online2PDF you can join up to 20 documents at a time for a total weight of 100MB; you can also convert PDF files to other file formats, reduce their weight, remove printing and editing protection and much more.
To use Online2PDF, linked to its home page and drag the documents to be merged into the red box at the bottom. Then reorder the documents using the mouse, select the Merge files item from the Mode drop-down menu , the item one after the other from the How menu and click the Convert button to download the output document. Make sure that the PDF format is selected in the Convert to drop-down menu .
If you want, you can also modify the pages of the individual documents to be kept in the output file (by clicking on the scissors icon located next to the title of each document) and create documents in mixed and alternating order (with the pages being taken alternately by the two documents) by selecting the appropriate item from the As drop-down menu.
