Exploring the Easiest Way to Merge PDF Files on a Mac

The PDF format is one of the most popular file formats in use today. You can utilize it for a wide variety of purposes such as documents, project reports, school assignments, bank statements, images, research papers, etc.

Thanks to its many advantages over other legacy formats, PDFs are commonly used today and usually accepted everywhere. Many different apps allow you to save or export your work as a PDF, and you can conveniently convert a file to a PDF. PDFs are also versatile in nature, allowing you to edit and make changes to them with ease.

Sometimes, you may want to combine two or more PDFs into a single file. For example, you finished finished an assignment, and you want to merge the new PDF file with the main assignment file to submit to your teacher. Or you receive the latest transaction statement from your bank, and you want to combine all PDF bank statements into a single file to send to your accountant.

Does this leave you scratching your head? How do you merge PDF files on a Mac?

We are going to look at three popular PDF reader apps for Mac you can use to combine two PDF files on a Mac. Let’s begin with the default option on macOS.

Option 1: Merge PDF files on a Mac using Preview

All modern Macs ship with Preview, Apple’s default app for opening images and PDFs. Consider two PDF files, the first one is the ‘source’ file and the second one is the file you want to merge into the source file. Using Preview, you can combine two or more PDF files into one with a simple drag & drop action. Let’s take a look at it step by step:

1. First, launch the Preview.app and open the PDF file you want to merge into.
2. Click on the ‘View’ menu at the top left of your screen, and then click on ‘Thumbnails.’ You can also press the corresponding ‘Option+Command+2’ shortcut.
3. This opens a sidebar on the left hand side showing little previews of each page of your PDF.
4. Next, simply drag and drop the second PDF file you want to merge with the source file, onto these thumbnails. Your second PDF file is added automatically where you drop it — i.e. if you drop it between page numbers 3 and 4 as seen in the screenshot, the pages from the second PDF file appear between pages 3 and 4.
5. Optionally, instead of Step 4, you can click on the ‘Edit’ menu and then click on Insert > Page from File… This allows you to choose which file you want to insert into the original PDF file.
6. When you’re done, save your file.

How to Merge Selected Pages from PDF files using Preview on Mac:

What if you want to merge a few selected pages from the second PDF file into the source PDF? That’s easy too. Here’s how:

1. First, launch the Preview.app and open the Source PDF file.
2. Click on the ‘View’ menu at the top left of your screen, and then click on ‘Thumbnails.’ You can also press the corresponding ‘Option+Command+2’ shortcut. This opens a sidebar on the left hand side showing little previews of each page of your PDF.
3. Similarly, open the second PDF file and choose View > Thumbnails, or press the Option+Command+2 shortcut.
4. From the thumbnails of the second PDF, select and drag the pages you want to add to the source file and drop them where you want.
5. When you’re done, save your file.

Preview is the default app on all modern Macs and makes it easy to combine two or more PDF files on a Mac.

Option 2: How to Combine PDF Files on a Mac using Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat Reader has long been the most commonly used PDF software on any platform. However, trying to get anything done in the app is quite a tedious process. Let’s take a look at how to combine PDF files on a Mac using Adobe Acrobat.

1. Launch Adobe Acrobat.
2. Click on the Tools options at the top left of your window and then select Combine Files.
3. Next, click on ‘Add Files’ and select the files you want to merge with your PDF.
4. Once finished, click ‘Combine Files’.
5. When you’re done, save your file.

Option 3: How to Combine PDF Files on a Mac using PDF Expert

While Preview is the default app on macOS for handling PDFs, there are many other third-party apps offering a far better suite of features when it comes to working with PDFs. These apps provide greater control and freedom over your PDFs and allow for more flexibility. Most notably, there are 3 main disadvantages to using Preview to merge PDF files on Mac:

1. It’s not intuitive. There’s no real way to find out how to merge PDFs in Preview.
2. Preview ignores the scripts in your forms when you merge them. Your important data goes into a black hole!
3. When Preview attempts to merge large files, the resulting file becomes far too bulky. This makes Preview drag its feet, and you often find it bringing your whole system to a crawl.

Let’s take a look at some options. It is super easy to merge PDF files on Mac using PDF Expert. In fact, you can merge PDF files using PDF Expert three different ways:

Method 1: Menu Options

1. Download PDF Expert and launch it.
2. Click on the ‘File’ menu at the top left of your screen and then click on ‘Merge files.’
3. Next, select the PDFs you want to combine and click on the ‘Merge’ button.
4. When you’re done, save your file.

Method 2: Visual Drag and Drop

1. Launch PDF Expert and open the source file in it.
2. Switch to the ‘Thumbnails’ mode from the toolbar at the top to see a grid of all the pages in the current file.
3. Next, simply drag and drop the file you want to merge into your opened document.
4. When you’re done, save your file.

Method 3: Append File

1. Launch PDF Expert and open the source file in it.
2. Switch to the ‘Thumbnails’ mode from the toolbar at the top to see a grid of all the pages in the current file.
3. Click on the ‘Append file…’ option in the toolbar and select the file you want to merge with the current file.
4. When you’re done, save your file.

With PDF Expert, you get the flexibility of working with PDFs in your own way. It is the best way to merge PDF files on a Mac, and it offers many other, easy tools for you to get your work done.

Apple’s Preview.app, Readdle’s PDF Expert and Adobe Acrobat are the three popular PDF apps for Mac and today we’ve seen how to easily merge two PDFs using these apps.

Author: Preshit Deorukhkar, a technology consultant and connoisseur of productivity apps.