How to Combine PDF Files on Mac Using Preview

The Preview program that comes pre-installed on every Mac provides a super-simple way to combine PDF files for free. Just follow these steps:

1. Open the PDF files you want to combine using Preview. The Preview app is located in the Applications folder on your Mac.

   

2. Make sure page thumbnails are visible on both PDFs by clicking the sidebar button and and clicking Thumbnails.

   

3. On one PDF, select the thumbnails. You can select all of them by clicking command+A, or individual pages by holding down Shift and then clicking on the pages you want to merge.

4. Drag the thumbnails you selected in the last step 3 into the Thumbnails sidebar on the other PDF. This merges the new pages into the existing PDF.

   

   To choose where in the merged file the new PDF is added, drag and drop in the sidebar to put the file in the proper order. You can also re-arrange the pages in the Thumbnails sidebar after dragging and dropping the new PDF, if you prefer.

5. Save the new, combined PDF.

   

How to Combine PDF Files on Mac Using Adobe Acrobat

If you’ve got Adobe Acrobat—which is part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud line of high-end graphics, animation, and publishing programs—you can merge PDFs using that program instead. Here’s what to do:

1. Open Adobe Acrobat.

2. From the homescreen of Adobe Acrobat, find the Combine Files section and click Use Now.

   

   If this option isn’t displayed by default for you, click See All Tools first.

3. Click Add Files.

   

4. A Finder window pops up. Navigate to the PDFs you want to combine and select them. You can select them one at a time, select files next to each other by holding down Shift when you click, or select files that aren’t next to each other by holding down Command when you click.

   When you’ve selected all the files you want to combine, click Add Files.

   

5. All of the files you’re going to combine are displayed. You can drag and drop them to change their order in the combined PDF. When they’re in the order you want, click Combine.

   

6. After the files are combined, the merged PDF is displayed. You can still re-order the pages here, if you want. Click Page Thumbnails in the sidebar and then drag and drop the pages to re-order.

   

7. Save the PDF.

How to Combine PDF Files on Mac Using Combine PDF

If you prefer to combine your PDFs using a free online tool, you’ve got a number of options. For these instructions, we chose Combine PDF, but there are a number of other good options out there. We also like PDF Merge.

To use Combine PDF, follow these steps:

1. In your preferred web browser, go to the Combine PDF website. Click Upload Files.

   

2. Navigate through your hard drive to find and select the PDFs you want to combine and then click Choose.

   

   You can also drag and drop the PDFs into the page, if you prefer that route.

3. The PDFs will upload and then convert for use by the website. Wait until that process has completed and both PDFs show the Download option.

   

4. Drag and drop the files to change the order in which they’ll be merged.

5. Click Combine to merge the PDFs (and, if your browser prompts you with a security warning, click Allow).

   

6. The combined PDF automatically downloads to your Mac’s Downloads folder. The PDF will be named combinepdf.pdf.

   

7. Open the merged PDF using Preview or Adobe Acrobat to see the results or to re-order pages using the steps described earlier in this article.