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.

Switching to OS X from a PC is a big change. Here are a some of my random thoughts on the transition.

Mentally it’s better to think, “This is new, let’s learn it from scratch” rather than thinking of “changing” from PC to Mac.

There will be lots of times where you will think “How can I do this?”, but you can’t.

Try to resist the disappointment of lack of features, and enjoy the simplicity and integration OS X offers. Try to appreciate less is more.

Forget about Microsoft Office – don’t even install it on your Mac to begin with. Instead, buy iWork and try out Pages and Keynote.

Don’t be tempted to stay with Office because you are used to it. Don’t go back to it after a day of trying out iWork. Use Pages until you are comfortable with it. Use it until you have mastered its text editing, graphics, styles, exporting, text wrap, lists, shadow, charts. Use it till you appreciate the difference between Page Layout and Word Processing. (Think about how much time you’ve spent getting used to Microsoft Word – give Pages a chance) THEN, after you understand Pages, make the decision whether to go back to Microsoft Office or stay in Pages.

Despite the similarities between OSX and XP/ME etc, they are quite different.

I even took while a while to get used to iWork from Word and I am a Mac user.

Avoid the temptation that computer people have to put things in your own directories. OS X likes you to leave things where it puts them.

Eg if you put all your photos in iphoto, they will be available to iwork, idvd, imovie etc. If you decide to put your photos in your own spot, they won’t. OS X very integrated, but it likes you to put photos in iPhoto, music iTunes folder, addresses in address book, calendar in ical, movies into iMovie and so on. It’s best to just jump in boots and all and do it the OS X way.

Don’t be tempted to use Microsoft Office for email for 6 months because it’s easier – you lose the simplicity of the OS X integration if you do this.

Certainly don’t do things like partition a part of hard drive for all your data. The Mac way is to have everything on the boot drive – the way it comes from the shop. If you must, use an external drive for movie files.

Basically don’t fight against OSX, run with it.

Enjoy what it can do, try not to be frustrated by what it can’t do.

If there is a feature you want, email Apple about it and let them know.

Here are some more tips from Apple.

My friend Dave has just moved across to mac and he tells me that in Microsoft publisher you can use a booklet template to make a booklet. By booklet I mean A4 pages folded in half to make an A5 booklet that you staple in the middle. To do this all the pages need to be re-ordered, for example, page 8 goes near page 1, page 2 near page 7 and so on. Publisher did this automatically.

With Pages in OS X there is no such built in option to do this automatically, but there is a great little program called ‘create booklet’ that will do it for you when you go to print the document.

You need to download a little program called ‘Create Booklet’ to do it. You can download it directly from here or go to the webpage here.

After you’ve downloaded it, Click on the ‘install- Create Booket PDF Service’
This will install an extra menu item in your printer menu to be able to print booklets.

After you’ve done this, go into Pages and select print, like you are going to normally print a document. But instead of pressing print (in the bottom right corner of the window) select the ‘PDF’ button in the bottom left, and click on ‘Create Booklet’

Your document will automatically be made into a booklet. It will open in a new window, and you can either ‘save’ it as a PDF file (to email to someone or print out later) or you can print it as a booklet to your printer.

Just remember that when you are designing a booklet, it will be printed smaller than usual. The A4 page you see on your screen will be printed on 1/2 an A4 page when you make a booklet, so make all the text a bit bigger than usual. Eg use a 16 point font instead of 12.

Note: There was an application called ‘Cocoa Booklet’ that used to do this but it doesn’t work in Snow Leopard, this is the new way of doing it.

Note: If you want to publish a book, and need a more professional binding solution try this program (it’s not free).

• carbon copy cloner

See the entry on backups, this application allows you to make a bootable backup of your hard drive. Superdooper, a newer program, seems to be a more popular backup program and simpler to use, but it’s not free so I still use CCC.

• skype (voice over IP)

Skype allows you to speak to other skype users anywhere in the world for free over the internet. Simply download skype, create yourself a ‘skype name’, this is your unique skype name, and you are away. You don’t need to pay any money unless you want to make a call to a normal phone number. If you have an imac or a powerbook or ibook you can use the built in microphone and speaker, but for better results use a headset microphone which will stop any ‘echo’ you may experience. Your friends need to have their computer on when you search for them in skype for the first time, or skype will not find them.

• textwrangler

A great little text editor, like textedit, but many features such as search and replace on multiple files without opening them, automatic formatting for html, compare two different text files and show the differences, open and edit text files over ftp, if you’re not sure why you’d need those features, stick with textedit!

• mac the ripper

Allows you to capture a DVD from your DVD drive, then view it in quicktime. Good if you just want to watch one chapter of a DVD, or if you want to watch a DVD in the car without running your laptop battery flat – it uses much less power to watch a DVD from the hard drive than from the DVD drive.

• quicksilver

Fantastic application, hard to explain how to use it and what it does, but I use it probably at least 20 times a day. It allows you to do many things at the press of a key, like a shortcut, but without you having to remember what key does what, because it guesses what you want to do by what you type in, and it learns, very clever. It takes a bit of learning, but the time you save after learning it is well worth it. http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver

• combine pdf’s

As it says, allows you to combine multiple pdf documents into a single pdf documents. For example, combine a single page pdf from pages with a pdf printed from a screenshot with a pdf from illustrator all into one document of three pages.

• Cocoa booklet

Cocoa Booklet takes a multi page pdf file (eg 16 pages long), and makes it into a booklet by moving all the pages into a different order so that when you print it double sided and staple it into a booklet, all the pages are in the right order – like Microsoft publisher does on the PC. You can reduce the size too, ie make an a5 booklet from a4 pages.

• Audio hijack

Allows you to record any sound from your computer (skype conversation, itunes song, streaming audio, movie soundtrack etc) to an mp3 file. THIS IS NO LONGER FREE.

• LAME engine for itunes

See separate entry under music, this imports your itunes songs at a better quality than the itunes encoder.

• Online Bible

A free piece of bible software, easily the most simple to use, now available for OS-X as a beta release. Does searches on words in english, or greek/hebrew. A good cross reference system. Allows you to paste bible text into any application (eg Pages) with a hotkey.

• Audacity

A full-featured audio recorder. It can record audio with a level indicator, then process the audio (speed it up, slow it down, raise or lower the pitch, compress, normalise etc) and then export to mp3 or other formats. Stick with the simpler ‘soundstudio’ if you don’t need these features.