How can I combine two PDFs in Preview?

Question

Studer · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-29 19:01:25Z

up vote 15 down vote accepted

First, you can only merge pdf if they are not protected, if this is the okay :

Open both pdf
Enable the sidebar in each windows of Preview, then select "Thumbnails" view
Drag & drop the cover (inside the sidebar) of one pdf into the sidebar of the other pdf.

With this method, you can completely merge two pdf or selectively drag & drop the pages you want to merge to create a completely custom new pdf.

You can also extract pages from one pdf still using the same manipulation, but drag & drop to the Desktop.

edited Aug 29 '10 at 19:01

answered Aug 29 '10 at 1:09

Studer
4,34411531

	With "Toggle the sidebar" you probably meant "Enable the sidebar" or something like that (i.e., make it visible). – Jonik Aug 29 '10 at 11:19
	@Jonik : Yeas, of course. I changed it. – Studer Aug 29 '10 at 19:01
	Very nice! I've always used a java-based "PDF Split & Merge" utility, but this sounds easier. – khedron Aug 30 '10 at 5:52
	Wow, awesome tip. Didn't realise you could do this. Fab. – Chops Aug 31 '10 at 19:42

Larry Gritz · Answer 2 · 2010-09-01 05:21:30Z

I know you asked for 'Preview' solutions, but in case you're interested in a command-line tool:

alias pdfjoin='/System/Library/Automator/Combine\ PDF\ Pages.action/Contents/Resources/join.py'

Then you can do things like

pdfjoin -o out.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf ...

chris · Answer 3 · 2010-12-13 05:09:38Z

Here's a detailed explanation of how to use Automator. It looks complicated but it only took me a couple of minutes to reproduce it on my computer...

Graham Perks · Answer 4 · 2010-08-31 16:36:25Z

up vote 0 down vote

Another way is with Automator. You can combine many pages into one PDF with that. It has a "Combine PDF Pages" action.

answered Aug 31 '10 at 16:36

Graham Perks

4 Answers