Invoices, contract appendices and certificates often arrive as separate files – three PDFs, two photos from a phone and one more Word document. Sending a bundle like that is awkward, and the recipient will ask for „one file” anyway. In this article: how to merge PDF files into one, arrange the pages in the right order and keep the quality.
What to know before merging
You can merge more than just PDFs. A combined document often needs to include scanned pages, JPG photos or a Word file too. If even one of them is a scan or a photo, that page will be just an image in the final PDF – search won’t work on it and you won’t be able to copy the text. We explained why in our article what is OCR. That’s why it’s best to recognise the text at the same time as you merge.
How to merge files with ABBYY FineReader PDF
- Open FineReader PDF and choose to create a PDF from multiple files.
- Add all the files you need – PDF, Word, Excel, JPG or others. You can simply drag and drop them into the window.
- Arrange the files in the order they should appear in the final document.
- Select the text recognition option if any of the files are scans or photos.
- Click ‘Create’ and save the resulting PDF.
In the merged document, you can still move, rotate, delete or insert pages – there’s no need to start all over again.
How to add pages to an existing PDF
If the document already exists and you just need to add another page, open it in the FineReader PDF editor and insert pages from another file, a scanner or a photo. This is handy, for example, for adding a signed last page that was scanned separately to a contract.
Are free online tools any good?
For two unimportant files – yes. However, free online PDF merging services usually limit file size or number, don’t recognise scanned text and, most importantly, upload your documents to someone else’s server. For invoices, contracts and documents containing personal data, that’s a risk best avoided. FineReader PDF merges files on your own computer.
A few tips
- Before merging, rename the files in sequence (01, 02, 03…) – that makes them easier to arrange.
- If the final file is too large to send by email, you can reduce it – we explain how in our article how to reduce PDF file size.
- Save documents intended for archiving in PDF/A format – more in our article on PDF/A archiving.
Which FineReader edition to choose
To merge files, organise pages and recognise text, ABBYY FineReader PDF Standard (Windows) is enough. The Corporate edition also compares documents and automatically processes files from a watched folder. For Mac computers there is FineReader PDF for Mac. The differences between all editions are in the comparison table.