Merging PDF files Together

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I’m looking for a workaround to not buy Adobe Acrobat since this is the only time that I had needed it since using a computer for the last 20 years and I need to do just this 1 job with it.

I’m trying to use Preview viewer to merge pdf files together and I was successful at doing it just a minute ago yet can’t seem to replicate my steps again. I open 2 pdf files in 2 separate Preview viewers (one being an older version) then drag a page from one sidebar into the next sidebar to correlate my multiple pdf file.

But the Save and Save All option is grayed out and the Save option is only allowed in the drop down submenu under File. It would be nice if they weren’t :/ But I have seen a Save All option button when I try to close the Preview viewer and this document looks like it’s saved somewhere but never says to where and I can’t find the file name under the Search bar option.

Does anyone here know a work around on how I can do this please? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated thank you very much.

Best Answer

You were actually doing it correct, its just that when you want to save it, you actually have to export it as a separate file. If you wish to keep the same file name, you'll have to save it as a different name 1st, then delete the original and rename the new one.

Here is the step by step guide:

Combine two PDFs

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.

Select the PDF that you want to add, then click Open.

To save, choose File > Export.

Combine part of a PDF with another PDF

Open the PDFs that you want to combine in Preview.

In each document, choose View > Thumbnails to show page thumbnails in the sidebar.

Press and hold the Command key, select the page thumbnails that you want to add to the other document, then let go of Command.

Drag the selected thumbnails into the sidebar of the other PDF, then release where you want them to appear.

If your Mac has macOS Sierra or earlier, drag the thumbnails directly onto a thumbnail in the other PDF.

To save, choose File > Export.

You can view more information and details here: https://support.apple.com/en-ph/HT202945

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Preview merges pdf and result in huge file size

I can't really answer as to why it's so inefficient, but i've had the same problem, and i got around it by using free Quartz filters from Jerome Colas.

This post on the Apple discussion boards has the details, but the link is broken, an extra * on the end breaks it, it should be https://public.me.com/jcolas.

Download, unzip, and add the "Filters" folder to your Library folder.

To use, open a PDF in Preview, click File > Save As, then select Quartz Filter, and the level of compression. Preview Save As dialog box

I believe that Jerome is exposing something that already exists in OSX, but certainly, it's a good solution that works well for me, allowing me to get a good balance between quality and filesize.

MacOS – Mac OS X: How to merge pdf files in a directory according to their file names

Try pdftk. It is command-line software that can join PDF files (and do lots of other stuff, too, but that isn't relevant here). You can download it from the official pdftk web page.

Sample syntax:

pdftk old1.pdf old2.pdf old3.pdf cat output new.pdf

will create the file new.pdf that contains the concatenation of the files old1.pdf, old2.pdf, old3.pdf.

To solve your problem, with your example filenames:

pdftk 1000.*.pdf cat 1000.pdf
pdftk 2000.*.pdf cat 2000.pdf

and so on. You can use shell scripting to make this completely automatic if desired (but you'll have to spend a little time on your own learning how to write shell scripts).

Assuming all files are named 1000.x, 2000.x etc. a shell script could look somehow like this

#!/bin/bash

for n in {1..9}; do
    if [[ -r ${n}000.1.pdf ]]; then
        rm -f ${n}000.pdf
        pdftk ${n}000.*.pdf cat ${n}000.pdf && mv ${n}000.*.pdf ~/.Trash/
    fi
done

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Preview merges pdf and result in huge file size

MacOS – Mac OS X: How to merge pdf files in a directory according to their file names

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