How to Merge PDF Files on the Web or Your Desktop: 5 Methods

This article was co-authored by Luigi Oppido and by wikiHow staff writer, Megaera Lorenz, PhD. Luigi Oppido is the Owner and Operator of Pleasure Point Computers in Santa Cruz, California. Luigi has over 25 years of experience in general computer repair, data recovery, virus removal, and upgrades. He is also the host of the Computer Man Show! broadcasted on KSQD covering central California for over two years.

This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources.

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Combining the contents of two or more PDF files is easy, even if you don't have Adobe Acrobat. Many free apps are capable of merging PDF files together. You can do it online using a wide variety of tools, including Adobe’s free PDF Combiner. You can also do it on your desktop PC with a free third-party app like PDF Merger & Splitter, or with built-in tools like Finder and Preview on Mac. This tutorial will teach you quick and easy ways to merge several PDF files into a single document.

Things You Should Know

Visit Adobe’s free merger tool at https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/merge-pdf.html to easily combine PDFs online.
Use a third-party app like PDF Merger & Splitter to combine PDFs on your Windows computer.
Combine PDFs in Finder or Preview on a Mac.

Method 1 of 5:

Online

I Love PDF: https://www.ilovepdf.com/merge_pdf
Smallpdf: https://smallpdf.com/merge-pdf
PDF2Go: https://www.pdf2go.com/merge-pdf

You can also click the blue Select files button. A File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) window will open where you can browse for and select the PDFs you want to merge.

To remove a file, hover over it and then click the trash can icon.
To add more files, click the icon at the top of the merger window that looks like a document with a + in the bottom right corner.

Click Merge . You’ll see this blue button at the top right corner of the PDF Combiner window.

Click Download . Once the files are finished processing, this button will appear on the left side of the page. By default, the merged file will save to your Downloads folder.

Advertisement Method 2 of 5:

Using Windows

Click the Windows Start menu.
Click the Microsoft Store icon, which resembles a white shopping bag.
Click Search in the upper-right corner.
Type "PDF Merger & Splitter" in the search bar.
Click PDF Merger & Splitter.
Click GET.
There are lots of similar apps available, and they all work similarly. Other free options include PDFsam Basic, Merge PDF Free, and Merge PDF PLUS.

Open PDF Merger & Splitter. PDF Merger & Splitter has an icon that resembles a page. You can find it in the Windows Start menu, or you can click Launch in the Microsoft Store once it finishes downloading.

Click Merge PDF . It's the first purple button in the center of the page.

Click Add PDFs . It's the first option in the upper-left corner. This option opens File Explorer and allows you to browse for PDFs.

Navigate to the location of the PDFs you want to merge. Use File Explorer to navigate to the location of the PDFs you want to merge. Double-click the folder the PDFs are located in to navigate to that folder.

Click Add PDFs again to upload additional PDF files.
To change the order of the PDFs, click the PDF file you want to move in the list, and click Move Up or Move Down above the list.
To remove a PDF, click the PDF you want to remove and click Remove above the list.

Click Merge PDFs . It's in the lower-right corner. This displays a Save prompt that you can use to save the merged PDFs.

You can also select a location to save the file to.

Click Save . This saves your PDFs as a single, merged PDF. Advertisement Method 3 of 5:

Using Mac (Finder Method)

Open a Finder window. Click the

Mac Finder

Finder icon in the Dock to open a new Finder window. Navigate to the location of the PDF files you want to merge.

You can also click View in the menu bar at the top of your screen, then select as Gallery.

Command-click the PDFs you want to merge. Hold down the command key while clicking on any PDF files you want to combine. Select the files in the order in which you want them to appear in the merged PDF.

You can also select the files you want to merge in List view, then control-click them and select Quick Actions > Create PDF.

Advertisement Method 4 of 5:

Using Mac (Preview Method)

Launch the Preview app. The icon looks like a snapshot of a landscape with a magnifier in front of it.

You can select multiple files at once by command-clicking them, then clicking Open.
You can also navigate to the PDF files you want to open in Finder, then right-click or control-click them and select Open With > Preview.

Duplicate the PDFs. To avoid making any unwanted permanent changes to the original files when you use this method, you may want to make copies instead of working with the originals. To do this, select each file, then click the File menu at the top of the screen and select Duplicate.

Open one of the duplicate files. It doesn’t matter which one you start with, since you can rearrange order of the pages within the combined file.

Enable the thumbnail pane in the View menu. If you don’t already see the sidebar that shows thumbnails of all the pages in your PDF, click View > Thumbnails in the menu at the top of the screen. It will appear on the left side of the PDF window.

Want to merge individual pages from another PDF into your document? Simply open the other PDF in preview, make sure Thumbnails is enabled, and drag the thumbnails of the desired pages over to the sidebar on the first document.

Advertisement Method 5 of 5:

Using Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is subscription-based, but Acrobat Pro offers a free trial option.

Click Tools . It's the second tab at the top. This displays the PDF creation tools. [2] X Research source

Click Combine Files . It's the second option on the Tools page. It has a purple icon that resembles two pages.

Click Add Files . It's the blue button in the center of the pages. This opens File Explorer on Windows, or the Finder on Mac. [3] X Research source

Navigate to the location the PDFs are stored. Use the File Explorer or Finder window to navigate to the folder the PDFs you want to merge are saved to.

Select the PDFs you want to merge. To select multiple files, press and hold Ctrl on Windows or Command on Mac. Then click the files you want to add.

To add additional PDFs, click Add Files at the top of the screen.
Click and drag the thumbnail images in Adobe Acrobat to change the order of the files.
To remove a PDF, click a thumbnail to select it and click Remove at the top of the page.

Click Combine . It's the blue button at the top of the page. This combines all the PDFs in the thumbnail list into one PDF. [4] X Research source

Click File . It's in the menu bar at the top of Adobe Acrobat.

Click Save as . It's in the drop-down menu below "File" in Adobe Acrobat.

Click a recent save location or click Choose a different folder . You can select one of the recent save locations listed, or click the blue button that says Choose a different folder to select a different save location.

Type a name for the merged PDF. Use the field next to "Filename" to type a name for the PDF.

Click Save . It's in the lower-right corner of the Save window. This saves the merged PDF using the file name you choose. [5] X Research source

Expert Q&A

How can I combine PDF files together? Do I use a specific software? Luigi Oppido
Computer & Tech Specialist

Luigi Oppido is the Owner and Operator of Pleasure Point Computers in Santa Cruz, California. Luigi has over 25 years of experience in general computer repair, data recovery, virus removal, and upgrades. He is also the host of the Computer Man Show! broadcasted on KSQD covering central California for over two years.

Computer & Tech Specialist Expert Answer There are many free sites that you can use online to merge PDFs. CutePDF is a good one.

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What do I do if my preview doesn't have a "save as" option, only a "save" option? Community Answer Use the edit menu discussed above. Edit, Insert works.

When I highlight several separate single-page PDFs in order to drag them to combine into a single PDF, the order changes. How can I combine several single-page PDFs and maintain the order when I merge them?

Community Answer

If you're using Adobe Acrobat, you can reorder the files within the "Combine Files" window by highlighting and dragging them to the order you want.

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