Combining pdf documents on an Apple computer is easy. Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion (the latest versions of Macintosh OSX) all have the ability to merge two different pdf documents together and even move pdf pages within a pdf file. There are lots of websites offering to sell software to do it, but you don’t need a third party program to do it – it’s built right in to OS X for free. Things have changed to make it a little easier with Mountain Lion so I’ve made a new post on merging two pdfs in Mountain Lion here, but for OSX prior to Mountain Lion, just follow the instructions below!
To join two or more pdf files together using Preview (the standard pdf viewer in OS X) simply open the pdf file in preview, open the thumbnail view (Shift-⌘-D), and then drag a second pdf ON TOP OF an existing page thumbnail. (It must be on top of the thumbnail, see the pictures below). The two documents will merge into one. Then save the new combined file. Read on for step-by-step instructions.
SUMMARY: To combine two separate PDF files into one document you need to drag the new pdf ON TOP OF an existing thumbnail until the double grey border appears – then it will merge the two pdfs together. (You can then save the new merged pdf.) If you drag it into the sidebar but not on top of an existing page the new file will be added as an external link – not merged into the original pdf document. See these two pictures below to visualise the difference.
WRONG WAY: Drag the new pdf file under the existing one and they are not merged - it will only insert a thumbnail that links to the second pdf. (Single grey border)
RIGHT WAY: Drag the new pdf file on top of the existing one and they will merge into one – creating one pdf document out of the two. (Notice the double grey border.)
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Here’s how to do it step by step.
1. Firstly, open one of the pdf files in Preview. Preview is the default application that a pdf will open into so if you just double click on the pdf file it will open in Preview.
2. Now go to the menu at the top of the screen called ‘View’ and click on ‘Sidebar’ (or ‘Show Sidebar’ if you have Snow Leopard). Alternatively, press Shift-Command-D to show the thumbnails. This will make a sidebar appear on the right side of the window with thumbnails of all the pdf pages in it. (See these pictures below).
In Leopard select ‘Sidebar’
In Snow Leopard and newer versions of Preview select ‘Sidebar’ then ‘Show Sidebar’
3. You can now drag the second pdf file (from a folder or from your desktop) or even a page from within the second pdf file (from thumbnail view) into this sidebar window, and it will be added to your pdf document as an additional page.
Drag the new pdf from the desktop onto an existing thumbnail.
To merge the two files you need to drag the new pdf ON TOP OF an existing thumbnail. (You will get a double grey border. See these two pictures below.
Drag the new pdf file under the existing one and it will open but not merge – no grey double border.
Drag the new pdf file on top of the existing one and it will merge. Notice the grey double border to show you the files will merge.
In older versions of Preview like Leopard,you get a red line to show you it will not be merged.
With Snow Leopard you get a blue bar.
In Lion no lines appear.
In all cases you do get the little grey box when you are merging and the same principle applies – drag it on top of the existing thumbnail to merge the two documents.
You can now save it – use ‘save as’ to save a new document with the merged fles, or you can use use ‘save’ to save over the existing document, adding the new pages to it.
An alternate way if you have lots of pdfs to merge.
Here’s an alternate way suggested in the comments below. It’s much faster if you have multiple files to merge.
Mac OS X Lion
From “Finder”, select and click all the pdf’s you want to assemble.
This will open them all at once in “Preview”.
Pick the “File” dropdown menu .
Pick the “Print” dropdown menu.
In the lower left hand corner, click the arrow next to “PDF”.
Click “Save to PDF”.
This will save all the separate pdf files into one pdf document.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Here are some more Macintosh How To articles to do with pdf documents:
Click here for how to reduce the file size of a pdf file.
Click here for how to edit a pdf document.
Click here to for how to make a pdf booklet.
This works, however it keeps changing the size of my documents to 8.5X14″. How do you preserve a custom size with this process?
Hi, thank you, this was very helpful
I’m having trouble getting this to work. One of the PDFs has editable fields and checkboxes (employment application). Whenever I combine it with another PDF, all of the fields and checkboxes are empty when I re-open the document. Thoughts anyone?
Thanks!! I had been emailing my docs to work merging and resending back to save. Have had my MAC for over a year and still learning the tricks it can do!!
Thanks!!!
Fricken fabulous! Combining PDFs worked for meI Thank you Thank you.
Can’t wait to see what else this web site can offer me.
Is there any way to preserve the names of the individual PDF files that are being merged? It defaults to labeling each sheet 1, 2, 3, etc. but for what I’m doing it’s critical that the sheet name remain what is was before the merge. Anyone have any ideas?
I didn’t know you could change page numbers to be named? Are you sure you can do that?
I just checked in Adobe Acrobat Pro and even there it won’t preserve file names, but you can manually apply a prefix to a page number of a document in Adobe Acrobat Pro which may help.
I have tried both methods (dragging over the thumbnail an opening both and print-save pdf and cannot get it to work. TRying to merge two pdf’s in Snow Leopard 10.6.8
Thanks
One addition to this: If you want to merge multiple pdfs into a single document in Snow Leopard, if you drop the 2nd into the 1st, then you won’t be able to drop the 3rd, etc. into the first. The trick is to open them all in Preview, then select all the other documents (2nd,3rd,4th, etc), and then drag and drop the whole group into the 1st in one shot. Preview knows to keep them in the same order they were in.
No matter how I try it, I can’t get this to merge. I’m on a Core i7 MacBook Pro with 16MB memory running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. My Preview app is v 5.0.3.
Any idea why this doesn’t work?
I opened one file, opened the sidebar, then opened the rest, each in its own window, and tried dragging each thumbnail onto the first thumbnail. There was no indication that anything happened, and when I saved, then reopened the file, there was still only one page.
Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks for any help with this.
Never mind, I got it to work. I was using .jpg files instead of .pdf. Duh!
Hi everyone help me. I have to merge 2 sheet files in 1 sheet. That would be locate by horizontal 2 pages in 1 sheet. Help me plz.
Thank you. This is really helpful.
so unbelievably simple and useful.
wow.
thanks so very much for posting this.
This post was so helpful and relieved so much frustration! Your instructions are very clear and easy to follow. Many thanks!!!
So very helpful!
The only save option under “file” on my mac-air is “save a version”. And this does not save the merged document shown on the “Preview” sidebar. So, how can I save the merged document?
Duplicate the pdf first, then you can save that version normally.
Very helpful article! Saved me a lot of time! THANKS!
Thank you! All these years had no idea Preview had a PDF file merge feature. This was very helpful.
Brilliant – I’ve managed to merge several PDF’s – but now I have a document that is way bigger than the combined actual size of the PDF’s!!! Aaargh – any help for this Mac beginner greatly appreciated! :)
Why didn’t I know this before!
I’ve been using my ancient Acrobat 5 full version until today… It may have avantages in complex situations – like combining a hundred Word-generated PDFs – but we’ll see. Maybe I can even contemplate Mountain Lion now.
Thank you!
Thank you so much! For many years mac-user and never knew! Amazingly easy!
I have OSX 10.6.8. The preview I have is not showing the grey back ground and the double grey background. Now how do I merge the PDFs.
Thank you
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I JUST LOVE MAC!!!
Thanks for this- I’ve had a mac for years and have always wondered how to do this.
THANK YOU!!!!
Thank you so much!! Xx
Excellent explanation :) Thanks!
Thank you, big help!
you just totally saved my life man. thanks!
Cool! Thanks.
Very helpful tip
This was so easy! Thank you for this tip!
Great to find this help to merge several pages (scanned as single pages)/pdf files into one multipage pdf. After some online researching and your helpful directions, I ended up scanning from my HP all-in-one printer/scanner directly into Preview (I’m amazed at how much is hidden in PREVIEW & what it can do besides display files) then combined the single pages back into one PDF just like the stapled, hardcopy stack of 11 pages I started with. Ended up scanning the text at 150 dpi to try to keep the file size down. Good quality & readability. Also instead of emailing all the files, I started a new Google Drive folder to share the PDFs with family. I did also try scanning with Image Capture, another free program on my old MacBook Pro -OS X 10.6.8. It worked well with my scanner too.
In Preview, Edit –> Insert –> Page from File also worked for me.
Thanks, this emphasize* worked it out!
*
ON TOP OF an existing thumbnail
This information was very helpful and worked like a charm!
Thank you!
Lisa
is it possible to merge more than 25 pages? Mine only allowed up to 25. I’m using Mountain Lion.
Thanks so much for this! Came in handy while sorting my portfolio.
Thanks, worked like a charm!
The instructions for merging pdf’s on Snow Leopard worked like a charm. THANKYOU.
I didn’t know this trick, it works perfectly. Thanks!
Thanks!!!!!
Thank you!!! So, so helpful!