User Guide Cancel

Combine or merge files into single PDF

Search
  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. What's new in Acrobat
    3. Keyboard shortcuts
    4. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. Action Wizard (Acrobat Pro)
    12. PDFs converted to web pages
    13. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    14. PDF articles
    15. Geospatial PDFs
    16. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    17. Change the default font for adding text
    18. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to JPG
    4. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    5. File format options for PDF export
    6. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. About certificate signatures
    5. Certificate-based signatures
    6. Validating digital signatures
    7. Adobe Approved Trust List
    8. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

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.

Watch a quick video tutorial and get started

Create merged PDFs

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.

  1. In Acrobat, choose Tools > Combine Files. The Combine Files interface is displayed with the toolbar at the top.

    Combine Files toolbar

  2. 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.

  3. As needed, do any of the following:

    Rearrange pages

    In the Thumbnail view, drag-and-drop the file or page into position. As you drag, a blue bar moves between pages or documents to indicate the current position.

    Expand pages or Collapse Document

    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 .

    Preview pages

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

    Delete pages

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

    Sort files

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

    Move files up or down file list

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

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

    Smaller File Size

    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.

    Default File Size

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

    Larger File Size

    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.

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

  6. 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.

Insert one PDF into another

  1. Open the PDF that serves as the basis of the combined file.

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

  3. In the secondary toolbar, choose Insert > From File.

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

    Insert from file option in the Organize Pages tool

  4. Select the PDF you want to insert and click Open.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

Add a custom page to a PDF

You can add a custom page to your PDF using the integrated Adobe Express app, which offers thousands of templates to choose from while combining files in Acrobat.

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in Acrobat and click Combine Files in the right pane.

  2. On the Combine Files toolbar, click Add Custom Page.

    Insert from template

  3. A new window opens with page editing options powered by Adobe Express.

    Choose the template you want to use for your new page, and use the editing controls to change any colors or text to your liking.

    Once you have finished customizing the page, click Add to add the page to the PDF.

    Choose and add a template

  4. The page is added to the PDF. You can drag the added page to the desired position in the PDF.

  5. Click Edit if you want to make additional changes to your new page. The editing panel opens. Click Save when you've finished. The updates appear in the PDF.

    Edit the added template

    Note:

    Once you save your PDF, you can't edit the added page by opening the Adobe Express app from Acrobat.

  6. Click Combine and save the PDF. This will finalize the changes on your new page, and you won't have access to the Edit option on that page going forward.

Insert a clipboard selection into a PDF (Windows)

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

  1. 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).

  2. Open the PDF that serves as the basis of the combined file.

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

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

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

Insert a web page or a blank page into a 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.

Placing PDFs as linked files in other documents

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.

  1. Do one of the following:

    • 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.

More like this

Adobe logo

Sign in to your account

Quick links

View all your plans Manage your plans

Legal Notices    |    Online Privacy Policy