Home / Design Center / Tutorials

Combining files into a PDF file

Brian Wood

This video shows you how to combine multiple files of various types into one sequentially numbered PDF file in Acrobat. You also learn how to manage the options for combining files, and wrap the separate files into a PDF Package that retains individual attributes of the files.

Requirements

To follow along with this article, you will need the following software and files:

• Acrobat 8
• Sample file (ZIP, 1.4 MB)

Watch this tutorial in the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop.

Combining PDFs

1. In Acrobat, go to the Control panel and choose Combine Files. This opens the Combine Files dialog box (see Figure 1).

   

   Figure 1: Use the Combine Files dialog box to combine files.

2. At the top of the dialog box, choose the Add Files button from the four options to combine files. You can also add folders, re-use files that you've combined in the past, or add files that are open on your computer.
3. Select the EXR Plan.xls, Katrina Cough.doc, and ProductOverview.pdf files. These are three different files types. Acrobat supports many other file types: click File Type to view the list of supported files.
4. Click Add Files to return to the Combine Files dialog box.
5. Select the Katrina Cough.doc file. In the lower left of the dialog box, click Move Up to move the document up in the file order. You can use the buttons to move documents up and down in the file order, or remove documents from the list.

6. Select the EXR Plan.xls file. In the lower right of the dialog box, click Choose Sheets. This opens a Preview and Select Sheets dialog box (see Figure 2) that lets you select individual sheets in a Microsoft Excel workbook to combine in your PDF. If you have a Microsoft Word document or other type of file open, you can select individual pages.

   

   Figure 2: The Preview and Select Sheets dialog box lets you preview Excel documents before combining them.

   As with the files themselves, you can move the sheets or pages up or down in the sheet order.

7. In the Select Worksheets list, choose the Select Press Tour Schedule and Market Analysis sheets. Click OK to return to the Combine Files dialog box, where the EXR Plan.xls file entry updates to reflect the new page range.
8. At the bottom of the Combine Files dialog box, choose Default File Size for a file size and conversion setting when Acrobat combines the files. You can also choose Small or Large.
9. Click the Options button in the lower left of the dialog box, to view an Options menu for enabling accessibility and bookmarks. Click Cancel.

10. Click the Next button in the lower right corner of the dialog box.

    You have two choices: merge the files as a single PDF, concatenating the file metadata, and so on; or combine the files in a PDF package. Notice that one of your files, the PDF, has password protection on it. To retain the security settings for your files, you must package the files.

11. Choose Assemble files into a PDF Package. Selecting this option packages your files.
12. Select Use Adobe Template as the cover sheet. You can customize your cover sheet by adding it as the first document in the combined files list and selecting Use First Document.

13. Click Create to start combining your documents.

    A status bar indicates the PDF package progress. Acrobat converts each file in the package and then displays the files in a preview window on the right side of the dialog box (see Figure 3).

    

    Figure 3: When the Combine process is complete, a preview of each document appears on the right.

14. Using the arrow buttons, navigate through previews of the documents and the individual pages, and view information about the total file size and original file size.
15. Click Save to save the file. The file opens automatically in Acrobat.

16. Click the Cover Sheet button. This cover sheet explains that the file contains a package that Acrobat added when you selected Use Adobe Template for the cover sheet.

    Package files are compatible with Acrobat 7.0 Professional. Users of this version will see the cover sheet as well as the packaged files, in the toolbar to the left (see Figure 4). You can navigate through the files using the toolbar or the Plus and Minus page icons above the Document window. Each file can have its own screen magnification, security settings, and other metadata.

    

    Figure 4: A template cover sheet in the PDF Package explains how the package works.

17. Select ProductOverview.pdf.
18. Right-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) to reveal another set of options. Here you can open files in separate windows and add or delete files from the package. If you add a file, Acrobat won't convert the file to a PDF in most cases. Instead, it creates a link to open the file in the native application. The link connects it to the existing package.

Where to go from here

For more information and additional tutorials, visit the Adobe Design Center.