Combine two or more files into a single PDF in the office or on the go. Drag and drop thumbnails to arrange pages in the right order from your computer or any web browser.

Note:

This document provides instructions for Acrobat DC and Acrobat 2017. If you're using Acrobat XI, see Acrobat XI Help.

Whether you're running Windows or MacOS, knowing how to combine PDF files is a good skill to have. We'll teach you the best ways, using a mix of the market leader (and pricey) Adobe Acrobat DC. Upload your files: Use the “choose file” buttons above to upload your PDF files and then press the 'merge' button to download your PDF. Select multiple PDF files in your desired order and click on “more files” to combine 5 files or more into one single document. Allows you to merge multiple PDF files into one document. There is no need to install special software and uploaded files can be in various formats like doc, xls, ppt and so on. In case you'd like to merge PDF files locally, download PDFmerge, install it then open Programs-neeviaPDF and run PDFmerge.

Use the Combine Files tool to merge Word, Excel, PowerPoint, audio, or video files, web pages, or existing PDFs. Acrobat lets you preview and arrange the documents and pages before creating the file. You can delete unwanted pages and move individual pages from a document anywhere among the pages being combined. Acrobat converts the pages of the various files into sequential pages of a single PDF.

Choose Tools > Combine Files. The Combine Files interface is displayed with the toolbar at the top.

Drag files or emails directly into the Combine Files interface. Alternatively, choose an option from the Add Files menu. You can add a folder of files, a web page, any currently open files, items in the clipboard, pages from a scanner, an email, or a file you combined previously (Reuse Files).

Note:

If you add a folder that contains files other than PDFs, the non-PDF files are not added.

In the Thumbnail view, drag-and-drop the file or pageinto position. As you drag, a blue bar moves between pages or documentsto indicate the current position.

In the Thumbnail view, hover over the page or file and then click the Expand pages thumbnail . In expanded view, you can easily move the individual pages among the other pages and documents.

To collapse the pages, hover over the first page and then click the Collapse Document thumbnail .

In the Thumbnail view, hover over the page, and then click the Zoom thumbnail .

In the Thumbnail view, hover over the page and then click the Delete thumbnail .

In the List view, click the column name that you wantto sort by. Click again to sort in reverse order. The order of filesin the list reflects the order of the files in the combined PDF.Sorting rearranges the pages of the combined PDF.

In the List view, select the file or files you want to move. Then click the Move Up or Move Down button.

Click Options, and select one of the file size options for the converted file:

Reduces large images to screen resolution and compresses the images by using low-quality JPEG. This option is suitable for onscreen display, email, and the Internet.

Note: If any of the source files are already PDFs, the Smaller File Size option applies the Reduce File Size feature to those files. The Reduce File Size feature is not applied if either the Default File Size or Larger File Size option is selected.

Create PDFs suitable for reliable viewing and printing of business documents. The PDF files in the list retain their original file size and quality.

Creates PDFs suitable for printing on desktop printers. Applies the High Quality Print conversion preset and the PDF files in the list retain the original file size and quality.

Note:

This option may result in a larger file size for the final PDF.

In the Options dialog box, specify the conversion settings as needed, then click OK.

When you have finished arranging the pages, click Combine.

A status dialog box shows the progress of the file conversions.Some source applications start and close automatically.

Openthe PDF that serves as the basis of the combined file.

Choose Tools > Organize Pages. The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.

In the secondary toolbar, choose Insert > From File.

Alternatively, you can right-click a page and select Insert Pages to get the insert options.

In the Insert Pages dialog box, specify where to insert the document (before or after the first or last page, or a designated page). Click OK.

To leave the original PDF intact as a separate file, choose Save As, and type a new name for the merged PDF.

Note:

You can also add an existing file to an opened PDF. Drag the file icon directly into the Page Thumbnails panel in the navigation pane.

Insert a clipboard selection intoa PDF (Windows)

You can insert one or more pages of selectedcontent copied from any application into an existing PDF.

Open the document containing the content that you want to add. Select the content, and then copy the selection (in most applications, by choosing Edit > Copy File To Clipboard).

Open the PDF that serves as the basis of the combinedfile.

Choose Tools > Organize Pages. The Organize Pages toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.

In the secondary toolbar, choose Insert > From Clipboard.

Alternatively, you can also right-click a page and select Insert Pages to get the insert options.

In the Insert Pages dialog box, specify where to insert the selection (before or after the first or last page, or a designated page). Click OK.

To leave the original PDF intact as a separate file, choose Save As, and type a new name for the merged PDF.

You can insert a web page into an existing PDF by choosing Tools > Organize Pages > Insert > From Web Page. In the dialog box that appears, enter the URL of the page that you want to add.

You can also add a blank page to your PDF document by:

• Choosing Tools > Organize Pages > Insert > Blank Page.
  

  In the Insert Pages dialog box, specify the location where you want to add the blank page.

• You can also use the context menu to add a blank page in between to pages. Choose Tools > Organize Pages to get the page thumbnail view. In the page thumbnail view, right-click the page where you want to insert a blank page. Select Insert Pages > A Blank Page.

You can incorporate PDFs into other types of files that support Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), such as InDesign® or Word files. These files are called OLE container documents. Later, if you edit the original PDF, the OLE features in the container application updates the embedded file in the container document, to reflect your changes.

Stitch Pdf Files Together Online

• Choose the OLE container application’s Insert Object command or Insert Hyperlink command.

• (Windows) In Acrobat, choose Edit > Copy File To Clipboard, and then choose the Paste Special command in the container application.

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The problem: Combining multiple PDF files into a single file, so you don't inflict a half-dozen PDF files on the accounting department when you know they'll lose track of more than one file. Or maybe you have four or five sections of a report that you've printed to separate PDF files from Word, Excel, and a photo editor. How do you get them all into a single PDF?

If you use a Mac, you have the only tool you'll need already built into the macOS operating system, though you can find more flexible and full-features solutions if you buy commercial third-party apps. If you use Windows, you'll need third-party apps, but you can find free open-source apps that do the job. There are also online apps that offer to combine and edit PDFs that you upload, but I don't recommend any of them. Your PDF files contain invisible metadata, potentially identifying you and your system, and you may not want to give that metadata to a website that offers free editing features. That site may want to profit from your data in ways you won't like.

How to Combine PDFs in Windows

When you need to combine PDF files in Windows, you may decide that you wish you had a Mac, where the Preview app gets the job done quickly and easily. Windows 10 lets you view PDF files in the Edge browser, but doesn't let you do anything with them. To merge or manage PDF files, you'll need either a free but limited third-party productivity app or one of a variety of well-designed commercial apps.

If your PDF-managing needs are minimal, install the free PDFsam from www.PDFsam.org. If you want the free product, uncheck the option in the installer to download the Enhanced version, which is free to preview but $49 to keep. A spacious interface lets you choose among functions like merging and splitting PDFs files, plus a nifty feature that combines two PDF documents, alternating the pages from one file with the pages from the other, so you can create a single PDF from separate PDFs that contain the front and back pages of an original two-sided document.

Don't expect an easy-to-use interface like the thumbnail views in Adobe Reader and other commercial software. You merge two PDF files by dragging them into a PDFsam window, which adds them to a list. You can specify a page range from each PDF, but you'll have to figure out which pages you want by viewing the document in a separate app like Microsoft Edge or Adobe Reader. Fortunately, you can open PDFs directly from the file list in PDFsam. When you're ready to merge the PDFs, click the Run button and a merged PDF gets created.

If you want better visual cues when merging PDFs, you'll need a commercial app that lets you see the combined PDF before you save it to disk and also displays thumbnail images that you can drag up and down in a sidebar in order to rearrange the pages. You can use almost any PDF-editing software, ranging from the moderately priced PDF-Xchange Editor from Tracker Software, or choose one of our Editor's Choice apps like ABBYY FineReader 14 or Adobe Acrobat DC.

All these apps let you combine PDFs in basically the same way. Here's how PDF-XChange Editor does it. The simplest method is to use File->New Document, and choose the option to Combine Files into a Single PDF. A file-list box will open. Drag into it the files that you want to combine into a single PDF. You can add PDF files, or any combination of text, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents into the list, and the app will convert them into PDF format while combining all the files into a single PDF.

When combining files, you can specify the page range that you want to import, but you can also fine tune the combination by opening multiple files in separate tabs in PDF-XChange Editor and dragging thumbnail images of the page you want from the source tab to the target tab (if thumbnails aren't visible, press Ctrl-T or use the View > Panes menu).

How to Combine PDFs on a Mac

Unlike Windows, macOS comes with high-powered PDF tools built in—provided by the deceptively modest-looking Preview app. To combine two or more PDF files in Preview, start by making a copy of one of the files and working with the duplicate (this is an essential precaution because Preview saves the file as you work, and if the results aren't what you want, you'll need to do some fancy footwork to get back the original file).

Open the duplicate file. If thumbnails aren't visible in Preview's sidebar, go to the View menu to switch them on. Next, simply drag additional PDF files into the sidebar and drop them at the position in the file where you want them to be—at the start or end, or between any two existing pages. If you get the location wrong, you can drag one or more thumbnails to the correct location, and you can delete any pages that you don't want.

Add Pdf Files Together Online

What if you only want to merge a few pages from a second PDF file? Open that file in another PDF window and drag the thumbnails that you want into your first PDF file. As always in macOS, you can Shift-click to select a continuous range of pages, or Cmd-click on multiple pages to select pages from anywhere in the file. If some pages get imported in the wrong orientation, use Preview's toolbar to rotate them.

Sometimes Preview acts in seemingly unpredictable ways when saving a file, so, when you have the combined pages arranged as you want them, choose File > Export to PDF and save the merged PDF under its own name. You can also choose File > Close, and follow the prompts to save the merged file under the name of the file you started with, but it's safest to use the Export to PDF option.

Preview has another PDF-merging trick that isn't immediately obvious. You can merge any file that Preview can display into an existing PDF. That means you can drag any PNG, TIFF, JPEG, or other standard image format into a PDF. But what if you want to create a PDF that contains a Word document or an Excel worksheet? You can't drag those documents into Preview, but you can use the Print menu in Word or Excel to create PDF files that you can use for a merge.

Alternatively, if you have a third-party app like Adobe Acrobat, you can merge PDFs in the same way that you merge them in Preview—but you can also directly drag files in any file format that Acrobat knows how to convert into PDF, including HTML web pages, plain text files, Word documents, and Excel worksheets. Acrobat also lets you create a completely new PDF from one or more of these same external formats. Simply use the File > Create menu and follow the prompts.

Adding Pdf Files Together

For other ways to convert a PDF into a Microsoft Word file, you can check out our guide. If you need assistance editing your PDF once the documents have been combined, check out our guide covering How to Edit a PDF.