Merge PDF files into one document.

What happens when you combine PDF files

To merge PDF files is to put the pages of several documents into one, in the order you picked them. The result opens as a new document called merged.pdf. The files you started from are not changed, and nothing is written to disk until you save.

When you merge PDF files, the new document takes its title and author from the first one. Every page comes through with its text, images and layout as they were.

How to merge PDF files

1. Open the web app, the desktop app or the browser extension.
2. Choose Merge PDFs… and pick the files.
3. Open Pages and check the order.
4. Choose Save a copy.

That is the outline. The full walk-through, including how to merge PDF files with the network switched off and how to check that nothing was sent, is in How to merge PDF files offline.

Put the pages in order before you save

You rarely want to merge PDF documents exactly as they come. The signed page belongs at the end, the cover letter goes first, and one scan is sideways.

The Pages panel shows every page of the merged document as a thumbnail. Drag a thumbnail to move the page. Select several and they move together. From the same panel you can rotate a page, duplicate it, insert a blank one or delete it, and each of those can be undone. There is more about the panel in organize PDF pages.

Click a thumbnail to select it, Shift-click to select a range, or tick the checkbox on each page you want. Whatever you do to a selection counts as one step, so a single undo puts all of those pages back.

What a merge does not carry over

Two things, and it is better to hear them now.

Bookmarks are dropped. When you merge PDF files that have an outline, the merged document comes out without one. If the bookmarks matter, keep the originals.

Digital signatures do not carry over either. A merge makes a new document, so a signature that covered one of the source files does not apply to the result.

A PDF merger that leaves the files where they are

Most sites that merge PDF files work by upload: the files go to a server, it joins them and you download the result. That means handing over every page of every file to get one file back.

Here nothing is uploaded. When you merge PDF files in the web app, the page itself does the work, and the desktop app does it on your computer. Neither asks for an account. OpenPdfEdit is an open source PDF editor, so you can check that in the code.

Where it runs, and what it costs

You can merge PDF files in a browser tab, in the desktop app for macOS and Windows, or in the extension for Chrome and Edge. The web app works in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the network off. On a phone it is the same editor, laid out for the screen.

It costs nothing to merge PDF files in any of them. There is no page limit, no daily allowance and nothing of ours stamped on the result. The only two tools anyone pays for in the app are watermarking and OCR.

After the merge

Once the files are one document, the usual next steps are close by. You can add page numbers or Bates numbers across the whole set; see How to add Bates numbers to a PDF. If the result is too large to send, compress PDF files into a smaller copy. If it is going to someone else, password protect a PDF before it leaves. And if you later need one part back by itself, you can split a PDF again.

More PDF tools

Guides: How to merge PDF files offline · How to add Bates numbers to a PDF · All guides

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