Hey everyone, Kevin here. Today I want to show you how you can merge
multiple PDF files into one PDF file, and this is completely free.
I'll show you two different ways to pull this off.
First, we'll use an online tool offered by Adobe. You have to upload your PDF,
it'll merge them, and then you can download the merged copy.
If maybe you have concerns about uploading your document to the cloud, I'll also show you
a tool that you can download and install that also allows you to merge your PDF. All right,
well let's jump on the computer and let's start merging files. Here I am on my desktop,
and I have three different PDF files, right here and I want to merge them into just one file.
First, I want to show you how you can use a free online service
to merge your PDFs into one. To merge your PDF file online, it's really as simple as going to
Google.com and then searching for merge PDF.
Here you'll see all sorts of different services that offer to merge your PDFs into one.
You have services like Small PDF, iLovePDF, even Adobe offers to merge your PDFs.
They all pretty much work the same way. You upload your PDF files, you can then rearrange the order,
and once you're all done, you can merge it and then download the merged file.
So, which one should you choose?
Well, once again, they all pretty much work the same way.
Most of them have some limits in terms of how many files you can merge on a daily basis.
With Adobe, probably the most well-known out of the bunch,
you have to sign in to be able to download, so that's a little bit of extra friction.
Let's click into Small PDF to see how this one works. On Small PDF, here I can choose my files,
or you can simply drag and drop my PDFs. I'm going to click on choose files. Here I
see my three PDF files. I'll highlight all of these and then click on open.
It's now uploaded my PDF files and most of these different services are freemium.
They give you some basic functionality for free, which is just doing a simple merge of all these
files and most of them also have a premium tier that gives you some additional capabilities.
Like maybe you want to add a watermark, or you want to rearrange individual pages within the PDF.
For now, the basic version works, so I'll click on choose option.
Here on the next screen, I can rearrange my PDF, so here I'll move them in the order that I want,
and I’ll place it just like this, I think that looks good.
Down below I can also add more pages if for whatever reason on the previous screen I forgot
to select all of my files. This all looks good, so I'll click on merge PDF. And look at that! It
looks like it has successfully merged my PDF. Now once again, just like I mentioned earlier,
most of these services only allow you to merge a certain number of PDFs on a daily basis.
So, on the search results, if you need to merge more, you can simply work your way down the list
and go through service by service if you need to merge a lot. So once I'm ready to download,
I'll click on this button right here, and it's now successfully downloaded my PDF. I'll click on this
to see how it turned out. And look at this, my PDF is now merged, and all the pages are together.
This is exactly what I want it to look like. Now once again, with these different online services,
there are limitations in place, also, I have to upload my PDF to the cloud,
so especially if it's a sensitive document, I might not want to do that.
Next, I want to show you how you can use an app that you can install
on your computer to merge PDFs, and once again, no limits and the PDF never leaves your computer.
There are lots of different tools available that allow you to merge PDFs on your computer.
And by far the most recommended and also trustworthy app that I found when I was doing
my research on different merge tools is called PDF Toolkit free or also known as PDFTK free, and this
tool will allow you to do basic merging, so you can pull together all of your different PDF files.
And there's also a premium version available called PDF Toolkit Pro.
It gives you a few more capabilities.
You could even rotate, add a watermark, you could put a stamp on, and it has a few other features,
and if you need any of these, it only runs for the price of $3.99, so it's not bad if you need those.
But I'm here today and I just need to merge a PDF so the free tool will do just fine.
To access this tool, navigate to the following website.
I've also included a link in the description of this video.
Once you land on this site, go down and click on this very prominent
bright green button that says download PDF toolkit free exclamation mark.
Once you click to download it, it'll open up the download prompt, and here one of the nice things
is you'll see that it's only 3.5 megabytes, so it's a pretty lightweight app. You're basically
just getting the merge capability, and that's all you want. You don't want some bloated software.
Let's click on run.
Once you finish downloading and installing the PDF Toolkit, go down to your taskbar and
within the search field, let's type in PDFTK and here you should see the tool appear.
Let's click on this.
This opens up the PDF Toolkit and up above I can specify what pages or what PDFs I want to merge.
Over here, I'll click on add PDF. Here I see my three PDF
files. I'll highlight all three of them and then click on open.
Right now, I see all of my pages here and I can rearrange what order these appear in,
so I can select one of these files and I can drag it down or here I could drag it back
up. Over on the right-hand side, I have some different options. I can specify within this PDF,
which pages do I want to include, just maybe page one, three, or seven. I could also list a range
of pages, and I could even specify whether I just want to include even or odd pages. So, in terms of
merging, this has quite a bit of functionality compared to some of the free online services.
I can even put the same file in more than once,
so here I could select one of my PDFs and I can copy the selection and then include it again.
Or maybe I added a PDF that I didn't intend to add. I could remove that selection,
so there's quite a bit of functionality up here in terms of merging PDFs.
Down below, I have some additional controls, but once again I need to go premium to access these.
Now I just want to do a basic merge, so right now this all looks good to me.
Down in the bottom left-hand corner, I'll click on create PDF.
This now opens up a file prompt and I can decide where I want to save my PDF.
I'll just put it on my desktop,
and I'll call it combined. Once I'm good to go, let's click on save.
It's now successfully combined my PDF files. Here I see a new file called combined.
Let's click on this to see how it turned out.
And look at that, here is my combined PDF,
so it combined it exactly how I wanted it to be combined.
Now, personally, I like using this tool more than the online services.
It gives me a little bit more control over how I merge all of my files.
Of course, I do have to download and install a tool, so there is a
little bit more friction before you can start merging, but I think the power is worthwhile.
All right, well that's how easy it is to merge PDF files.
If this video helped you, please give it a thumbs up. To see more videos like this in the future,
make sure to hit that subscribe button. Also, if you want to see me cover any
other topics on this channel, leave a note down below. All right, well that's
all I had for you today. I hope you enjoyed, and as always, I hope to see you next time, bye.