How To Combine PDFs on Mac OSX Leopard

If you have two or more different documents that you’d like to combine inbto a single PDF, that’s not unreasonable. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be difficult. There are several easy ways to combine several separate PDFs into a single file.

1) If you have Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.x) use “Preview“. Easy and included in Leopard. It’s easy to view the document’s pages in the sidebar, then drag pages from one PDF to the other.

1b) Upgrade to Leopard OSX 10.5 which also includes a lot of new features.

1c) Upgrade to Leopard and get new iLife! The whole Box Set includes latest versions of iLife, Mac OS X Leopard, and iWork. This is a real deal!

2) Acrobat Pro – expensive & mostly unnecessary features. I’m not recommending for this usage.

3) CombinePDFs from
http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/Freeware/CombinePDFs.shtml
Has a free trial for up to 1000 pages of PDFs, then $30.

4) PDF Pen. In addition to combining/splitting, pdfs, PDF Pen also lets you type, draw, & paste directly into any PDF. $49 from
http://www.smileonmymac.com/PDFpen/index.html
I’ve used PDF Pen for years, mostly just to type and fill in PDF forms. It’s a lot more stable now – I no longer cringe when showing it to a client or friend.

5) PDF Lab – I have not tried it, but some people like it, and it is free.
http://www.iconus.ch/fabien/products/pleng/pleng.html

6) Combine PDFs – I have not tried this, but it’s $14 and there is a free trial.
http://gotoes.org/sales/Join_Combine_PDF/

7) PDF Merge – Free ($5 donation requested). Note that newest version requires Leopard, so you might need the older version 1.01.
http://www.malcom-mac.com/blog/pdfmergex/

My favorites?
1st) I would give those free ones a try.
2nd) PDF Pen – also great for typing, drawing & pasting onto a PDF.
3rd) The Leopard or Leopard box set with new iLife will add value (& fun!) as well as solve this issue.