The quick way to combine PDFs
If you just want one PDF from several, this takes about a minute and works the same on every device:
- Open ClipLime Merge PDF in any current browser.
- Choose your PDFs or drop them on the page. You can add more files at any time.
- Drag the files into the order the reader should see them. They are joined from top to bottom.
- Press Merge, check the preview, and download the single PDF.
That is the whole job. The tool runs inside your browser, so the files are read and joined on your own device. Nothing is sent to a server, there is no account, no watermark and nothing to install. You can confirm that yourself, as how to check that a tool does not upload shows. The wording on the page is a little different on Combine PDF, which is the same tool aimed at people who think of the task as combining documents rather than merging them.
Combine PDF files on a Mac
Searching for how to combine PDF files on a Mac usually leads to Preview, the app that opens PDFs by default. Preview can do it: open the first PDF, show the thumbnail sidebar, then drag the second file's icon (from Finder) into the sidebar at the spot where its pages should go. Save with Export as PDF so you keep the original files untouched. It works, but it gets clumsy with more than two or three files, and it is easy to drop a file in the wrong place and not notice.
A browser tool is often quicker, because you pick all the files at once and then reorder them in a list. In Safari, Chrome or Firefox on macOS, open Merge PDF, select every file in Finder (hold Command to pick several) and drop them on the page. The result downloads to your Downloads folder like any other file. If you need to concatenate PDFs on a Mac regularly, a bookmark to the page is all the setup it needs.
Combine PDFs on Windows
Windows has no built-in way to join PDFs. File Explorer will not do it, and the default PDF viewer in Microsoft Edge only reads and prints. People often end up installing a program they will use once, or uploading private paperwork to a website to get a merged copy.
The browser route avoids both. Open the page in Edge, Chrome or Firefox, press Choose files, and select the PDFs in the dialog (hold Ctrl to pick several, or Shift for a run). Reorder them, merge, and save the result. Because the work happens locally, it also keeps working on a slow connection once the page has loaded.
Combine PDFs on an iPhone or Android phone
On a phone, the same page works in Safari or Chrome. Tap Choose files and your phone's file picker opens, where you can select PDFs from the Files app, iCloud Drive, Google Drive or your downloads folder. Reorder with the arrow buttons on each file (dragging also works, but the arrows are easier on a small screen), then merge and save to your phone.
Phones have less memory than computers, so very large sets can fail. ClipLime shows a warning when the files add up to a size your device may struggle with, which on a phone is about 60 MB combined. If you hit that, join half of the files first and then join the result with the rest.
Put the pages in the right order
Joining files is the easy half. Getting the pages into a sensible order is where mistakes happen, so use the tools the page gives you:
- Reorder whole files by dragging the grip on each one, or with the arrow buttons.
- Use only some pages of a file by typing them in the box under it, like
1-3, 5, 8-, where8-means page 8 to the end. You can also writeodd,evenorlast. - Choose pages opens a thumbnail grid. Tick the pages you want, drag them into a new position and turn a sideways scan upright before it is joined.
That means you can leave out a cover sheet, a blank back side or a page you should not send, without opening another tool first. If the finished file still has pages in the wrong order, Reorder PDF pages lets you drag thumbnails into place afterwards, reverse a document that was scanned last page first, or weave a stack of fronts and a stack of backs into one file (rearranging pages in a PDF walks through each). To turn a whole scan upright and keep the turn, see how to rotate a PDF and save it.
What a combined PDF keeps, and what it loses
Merging copies the chosen pages into a new file, one after another. The pages are not redrawn or recompressed, so text stays real text that you can select and search, and photos keep the quality they had. Pages of different sizes and orientations can sit in the same file, each keeps its own size.
A few things belong to the whole document rather than to a page, and a new file does not inherit them:
- Bookmarks (the outline in a viewer's side panel) are not carried over.
- Links that jump to another place in the same file are dropped, because that place may no longer exist. Links to websites stay.
- Fillable form fields keep their look but stop being editable.
- The title and author of the originals are left out.
If a document depends on a table of contents with clickable entries, expect to lose the clicking part. The text of the table itself stays.
Files that cannot be combined
Password protected PDFs are refused. Their pages are scrambled until someone decrypts them, and ClipLime does not decrypt files or remove passwords. A PDF that opens freely but has permission settings (for example no editing or no copying) counts as encrypted too. If you are allowed to open the file, print or export it from your PDF viewer to a new unprotected PDF, and add that copy instead.
A damaged or half downloaded file is reported by name, so you can remove it and merge the rest. Scanned PDFs merge like any other, but a scan is a picture of text and stays unsearchable afterwards, because ClipLime does not read text from pictures.
If the combined PDF is too big to send
A merged file is about as big as the originals added together, which can push it past an email or portal limit. Reduce PDF size shows what makes the file big, usually scanned pages or oversized photos, and recompresses those pictures while leaving the text alone. For a fixed target there are pages for common limits, so you can simply do the merge first and compress second.
Do the compression last. Compressing each source file first and merging afterwards works too, but then you compress things you may end up leaving out. The guide to compressing a PDF on Mac and Windows goes through the levels and size limits.
A few habits that save trouble
- Name your source files with a number prefix (01-contract.pdf, 02-appendix.pdf) so they appear in the right order in the file picker.
- Check the preview before downloading, especially page orientation, and fix sideways pages in the Choose pages grid.
- Keep the originals. The merged file is a new download and the sources are never changed.
- For very large sets, merge in two steps rather than one. It is more reliable than pushing a phone to its limit.
- Add page numbers last, once the order is final: see how to add page numbers to a PDF.