Combining and Splitting

Combining Two PDFs

  1. Open the two PDF files that you want to combine.
  2. Set the Sidebar to show Thumbnails in both PDFs. Show Thumbnail view in the Sidebar by clicking on the Sidebar button sidebar button in the toolbar and selecting Thumbnails from the menu (View > Thumbnails).
  3. Select all the thumbnails in one of the PDFs by selecting one thumbnail and choosing Edit > Select All (Command+A) from the menu.
  4. Drag the thumbnails from the Sidebar of one PDF to the other.

The pages will appear wherever you drop them. If you want them added to the beginning of the PDF, drop them in front of the pages already there. Likewise for the middle or end.

Tips on Combining PDFs

  • If you only want to combine selected pages from two PDFs, see Adding Pages to learn how to select multiple pages at a time.
  • You can import one PDF into another by choosing File > Insert. The pages of the file you choose are inserted after the current page.
  • You can also import one or more PDFs into another by dragging PDF files from the Finder, Preview, and Microsoft® Word into the thumbnail view. The pages of the file you choose are inserted at the insertion point.
  • If both documents have Tables of Contents, the entries will merge in the destination document.

Combining Two or More PDFs Using AppleScript

The application has a number of useful AppleScripts you can use to combine PDFs. Locate the AppleScript menu applescript icon on the far right of the menu bar, after the Help.

Combine PDFs

  1. Choose "Combine PDFs" from the AppleScript menu.
  2. A window opens asking you to choose PDF files to combine. Find the files that you want to combine and select them.
  3. Click Choose.
  4. Kofax Power PDF for Mac creates a new Untitled PDF with the pages from the files you selected, in the order that they appear. Save the new PDF.

Note: The files must all be in the same folder to be combined using the Combine PDFs AppleScript.

Merge Every Other
Merge two PDFs, interleaving the pages. This assumes you have two scanned documents, one being a scan of odd-numbered pages, the other a scan of even-numbered pages. The resulting document interleaves pages from each.

  1. Start by opening the document with the odd-numbered pages. Choose AppleScript menu > Merge Every Other.
  2. In the Choose a File window, select the PDF with even-numbered pages. The result, one PDF with page numbers intermixed into correct numerical order.

Splitting PDFs Using AppleScript

The application has an AppleScript you can use to split a PDF document into individual pages. 

  1. Open the PDF file you want to split.
  2. Choose AppleScript menu > Merge Every Other.
  3. Choose where you want to save the PDF files when split. 
  4. Click Choose.