How to Join Together Multiple PDF Files (and Why You Might Need To)

PDF files are widely used, and yet lots of people do not realize that they could be getting much more out of their documents thanks to the flexibility and adaptability of this format.

Combining more than one PDF document to create a single file is one example of the editing power you have as a user, so here is a look at how this can be achieved and why it could be sensible in the first place.

Merging your PDF files online

When working out how to merge PDFs, the first thing to note is that you can easily do this using an online tool.

The best sites that can perform this PDF merging action will let you upload the documents you want to combine, select the pages to be kept, edit the order of the pages to a setup that suits you and then stitch it all together seamlessly, creating a completely custom doc at the end of this process.

Combining PDFs locally

If you do not want to upload your files for merging via an online tool, you can use locally installed software to achieve this instead.

Mac users are in luck as the native Preview app allows for PDF merging within its menus, although this is somewhat limited compared with the aforementioned flexibility of the top online tools.

Windows fans will need to download separate software to do this, as the latest version of Microsoft’s OS does not have built-in support for PDF merging. There are lots of apps to consider, the best of which are premium versions like PDFsam, or even Adobe’s own Acrobat Pro software, which is obviously the only official package to support this function.

Why PDF merging is worthwhile

So why might you want to combine multiple PDF documents into one, rather than leaving them separate?

Convenience comes top of the agenda, as if you are sending the file to someone else and you do not want to attach multiple PDFs to an email or upload several different docs to your cloud sharing solution of choice, then merging will make your life a lot easier.

Security is another factor. Say you want to share a file, but you do not want certain elements of it to be accessible to the recipient. By merging different documents together you can pick and choose which elements are kept and which left out of the resultant file, as mentioned earlier, which of course means that you can keep sensitive information out of the hands of parties who should not be privy to it.

Presentational appeal is also a motivator when it comes to merging PDFs; rather than the clutter that comes with having to showcase several documents in quick succession, potentially with irrelevant information being displayed alongside the more pertinent talking points, you can instead send out the leanest, meanest version of the data with all of the fat trimmed off, all thanks to your PDF combination efforts.

File size is an additional reason to merge PDFs rather than leaving them as separate documents. By trimming down the number of pages included as part of the merging procedure, you can reduce the size of the output file and make it less of a burden whether you decide to email it or share it in some other form.

So there you have it; there are a few ways to approach combining multiple PDFs into one file, and a lot of good reasons to get involved in this practice, so there really is no excuse to avoid it!