Combining pdf documents on an Apple computer is easy. Leopard and Snow Leopard (the latest versions of Macintosh OSX that come on your computer) have the ability to move pdf pages within a pdf file around and even merge two different pdf documents together. It’s built right in to OS X for free – you don’t need a third party program to do it!
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 file 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 seperate PDF files into one document you need to drag the new pdf ON TOP OF an existing thumbnail and it will merge the two together. 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.
Drag the new pdf file under the existing one and it will insert a thumbnail that links to the second pdf but they are not merged.
Drag the new pdf file on top of the existing one and it will merge into it - creating one pdf.
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The blue line that appears underneath the original pdf lets you know the files are NOT being combined. Move the pdf on top of the other pdf so that the blue line disappears.
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) 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. 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.
Drag the new pdf file under the existing one and it will open but not merge.
Drag the new pdf file on top of the existing one and it will merge.
In some older versions of Preview, if you drag the second file on top of an existing page in the sidebar, it will appear as a red box to show you it will be merged, or as a red line to show you it will not be merged. In the latest version of preview, the red box does not appear, but 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.
No – you can’t reduce the file size of the new PDF document – you can’t get everything for free! To do this you Adobe Acrobat Professional.
Like this article ? Click here to for how to make a pdf booklet. Also here for how to reduce the file size of a pdf.
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That is brilliant! I used to use a program called Combine PDFs, but it is much better built into the system.
thanks! perfect explanation
This is awesome and so simple. I knew Leopard had something like this up it’s sleeve, I just never imagined it’d be so easy. I was able to drag multiple PDF files in and I just closed and saved with no hassle at all.
Thanks you´ve just saved my day !
Cool! Thanks very much.
This is really cool – spent a while finding software to do this, was even considering paying, but there it was already on my Mac!
One slight problem though – it seems to massively increase the size of the file. I added a file of 104KB to one of 105KB and it ended up being 4.7MB! Yes MEGA!
perfect!
thank you so much for the hint!
but yeah mine got pretty big, too!
is there a chance of resizing it?
Thanks! Amazingly simple.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I can finally do what I’ve always wanted to do! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thanks much!
Thanks a lot! This is an example of the reason for more and more people becoming Mac users.
you can merge pdf files using ghostscript, it is fast and easy, read more here: http://www.csnotes.net/?p=96
I find that it won’t save the document wilth all the new pages. It just saves the first page.
Excellent! THanks for this posting. Solved a problem for us… !
This was fabulous, easy and quick! Thanks for the pointer!
Life Saver! Why is this information not more easily accessible on the net, so many google searches for how to combine pdfs, but only after a lot of digging did I find this resource. And I was going to buy acrobat, not now!
Awesome, cheers for the tip!
Nice one!
Thanks! Worked liked a charm.
After fruitless searching I find this tip. Excellent – thank you.
Thanks, this was great. Now, is there an easy way to convert .pdf files to .txt files? I much prefer these for my ebook reader as they can be edited, re sized, formatted, etc. and require less space in my memory card.
Awesome info, thanks. I always thought Mac would be that easy but I just could not get it to work, almost bought a program then saw your posting, and I was right Mac is that easy.
Cheers,
O
Thanks…that helped alot!!
Thanks a million… almost downloaded a 780MB PDF merge tool!!
Mac OS 10.6 seams to have killed this :(
This now doesnt work the way you suggest. Snow leopard handles preview differently and it only saves one of the pages if you do it this way. This works for Leopard only.
It does work but you need to drag the new document inside the old one (between the existing pages) not to the end, and then save it. (Strange!) Note you can then drag it back to the end and it works.
Thankyou very much. This is a real winner, and so elegant.
That’s a life saver – Thanks Wayne. I was considering going back to previous version of preview. I’ll try this when I get home.
You may need to go to “Edit” –> “Insert Blank Page” first (I did) before you can drag pages into your document.
This works on Snow Leopard too. Instead of dragging new pages below the first page, drag them onto the icon of the first page in the sidebar. Annoying change i’ll admite
If you have a problem saving all individual pdf files into one file, do this: 1/ select all files you want to merge; 2/ open all in one go with Preview; 3/ re-arrange if necessary in the sidebar and make sure all files are selected (highlighted); 4/ print, but make sure to print to a pdf file !!!! (this is an option in the print pop-up menu). Done.
Awesome!!!
I’m running 10.5.8 and I couldn’t get this working at all. Absolutely nothing happened when I dragged the second file into Preview.
Any ideas, please?
To Andrew: I’m running 10.5.8 as well. Select all pdf files and open with Preview. If the files are opened each in their own Preview window, then make sure sidebar is active in all of them (see View menu item), and you can simply drag the different pdf files into the sidebar of one and the same Preview window. Now you have all files in one Preview window, you can close all the rest except this one, and you can re-arrange in the sidebar by dragging and finally print to a pdf file.
P.S. 1. Whether a group of files are opened in one Preview window or in several is an option you can set in Preview references; but it doesn’t really matter for this exercise as you can drag them into one window as you choose.
P.S. 2. The print menu is a great tool for creating pdf or other image files from text files or any other formats.
Make sure you select “thumbnails” and not “table of contents” at the bottom. If you aren’t looking at thumbnails nothing will happen.
Why does Apple do weird things like this? Just when we get used to doing one thing – they go and change it on us. Grrrrrr.
10.6 / Snow Leopard has not killed PDF merging. Delighted to just discover that it’s simply a case of dropping the imported page ON TOP of the page to be merged with.
If you just drop it in the side bar, it assumes that you are just gathering documents to view together.
Great tip! Tried to find this in the Help on my Mac, but no dice. Had to go to the Wide World of Web.
Kavi, the file size is probably a result of how the files were created. I scanned seven pages on a Brother MFC, @ 100 x 100 DPI (sufficient to make a legible copy of the doc) and ended up with 432 kb.
Okay – no idea why, but it all worked this time. I even found that I can drag a JPG which I’d opened in Preview onto the sidebar of the PDF I’d opened there and save the modified PDF.
Good stuff, Apple!
Wonderful and very useful – did not know that feature before – thanks!
Nice!!!
Thanks – a great tip – it just helped me a lot. However, I need now a tool to reduce the size of the resulting pdf-file…
Very nice post. Works for Snow Leopard for sure.
Thanks Andrew. Now I get it! Yes you have to drop it ON TOP of the existing page like pasting over it, and not insert it on top of the page! I’m using Snow Leopard10.6 and it worked!
ah…! great tip … and i finally read the instructions properly … i had the same problem with dragging the various pages and then saving only to find that only one page had saved.
so in snow leopard, you really do have to drag successive pages on top of the first page.
cheers and thanks for the tip
Andrew
Something very odd is happening for me. I’m using Snow Leopard. I can drag the thumbnail of a one-page PDF and combine it into other PDF’s but it doesn’t work with multi-page PDF’s–I can’t combine them into other PDF’s. I can’t get it to work any way I try. Help!
Thank you so much, Pirko. After struggling for hours, I finally read your suggestions. Two minutes later, I had my combined PDF file. :)
Thanks a lot dude.. it just awesome. i have been trying since couple of hours. but eventually u have save my day..
cheers.
Thanks for the tip. I had spent some time trying to find how to merge files before going on the net. So easy, when you know how!