# Is There Any Way To Automatically Concatenate PDF Files? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2007, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572 "2007-04-25T12:01:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572/1 "2007-04-25T12:01:03Z")
I’ve got a project at work for which I need to build about 290 .pdf files by bringing 2 to 5 .pdf files into one master document. Does anyone know of any software which would allow me to automate this process? I have a list with the number of files to concatenate and the file names. I can get that list into any format I’d need. The only tools I have on hand are VBA and Adobe Acrobat. VBA will let me do some manipulation of .pdf files, but I don’t know what the objects I need to work with are. I may be able convince the powers that be to spend a bit of money on some software, but I’d say no more than $100 USD at most. Can anyone out there lend me a hand? If not, well, at least I know what I’m doing for the rest of the week. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572/2 "2007-04-25T12:15:52Z")
Take a look at [PDFMeld](http://www.fytek.com/products.php?pg=pdfmeld&gclid=CK-v8p3t3YsCFRKsGgodalKobw) One of the things it says it does is: > [@](#): > > Combine multiple PDFs, images, MP3’s, flash or movie files and simple text files into a single PDF file If I’m reading it correctly, it is only 25 US. There are a great many tools to do this. You might check out PlanetPDF or PDFZone. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572/3 "2007-04-25T12:16:47Z")
[PDFtk](http://www.pdfhacks.com/pdftk/) can do it. It’s free and there are Windows packages available. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572/4 "2007-04-25T12:36:50Z")
[ConcatPDF](http://www.ujihara.jp/ConcatPDF/en/) also works well and is free. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572/5 "2007-04-25T12:53:31Z")
[PDFTools](http://www.sheelapps.com/pdftools.html) (also freeware) can also do it - I downloaded and used it for the first time today and it seems fine (I used it to split a 12 page PDF into single page documents, but it can also concatenate). ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572/6 "2007-04-25T16:27:32Z")
If you have access to a Mac, it’s a two-minute job to set up a custom workflow that will take a selected set of PDF files and concatenate them. I did this last week when I was working with individual PDFs of scanned journal pages that I wanted to join into a single document. I’m certain that the other methods described here will handle your needs, but if you need the instructions for this method, let me know and I’ll post them. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2007, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-way-to-automatically-concatenate-pdf-files/401572/7 "2007-04-25T16:35:09Z")
**Minor7flat5** , a couple of coworkers have been assigned to this project as well, so we don’t have enough Macs to go around. Thanks for the thought, though. **Mangetout** , this really isn’t fair, you know. I was already planning on buying you a beer next time I visit my uncle, so now what do I do? I’ve downloaded PDFTools and it’s working nicely. Thanks for the tip! Thanks, too, to everyone else who made suggestions.