[SOLVED] How to merge multiple PDFs into one PDF?

[Th3Professor]

How do you do that?

I have several PDFs that are 1-pagers and would like to merge them into one large PDF.

Is there a particular app that does this?

Thanks!

[y-lee]

hmm try Merge multiple PDFs into one file

[kaibob]

You can also use PDFtk, which is in the repo's, to do what you want. The commandline syntac is:

pdftk [input files] cat output [output file]

In the above command, you need to insert the names of the input files and output file. When combining a large number of PDF files, it may be easiest to place them in an empty directory and use *.pdf as the input files.

BTW, I use Ghostscript to combine PDF files, as explained in the link provided by y-lee.

[Th3Professor]

That did the trick...

I'll copy/paste the info just in case that website ever removes the info...

This process requires you to install two packages: Ghostscript and PDFtk. These packages are widely available in the repositories of your distro of choice. If you are going to install them using apt, use the following commands:

apt-get install gs
apt-get install pdftk


Now, open a terminal and copy and paste the following command:

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=firstANDsecond.pdf -dBATCH first.pdf second.pdf

Change the name of first.pdf and second.pdf to the PDF files that you would like to merge, and change the name of firstANDsecond.pdf to the name you would like to name your merged pdf file. If you haven’t changed directories, the merged document will be created in your home directory.
This command allows you to merge more than just two documents. If you would like to merge three or more PDF files, continue to append the file names to the above command (separated by a space).

On another note... is there a PDF "editor" out there?

I've used Adobe-type apps before, pretty handy, though am not familiar with any open source variations. Thanks!

[avtolle]

To edit PDF files, there is pdfedit in the repositories. This may be what you are looking for. Here's a link about using it under Feisty, which gives some additional information:

http://www.howtoforge.com/editing_pd..._ubuntu_feisty

[Th3Professor]

lol "pdfedit"... I should've figured that out! thx, good to know... it seems to be doing a pretty good job at basic pdf editing, though basics is all I need.

[kaibob]

For years I never knew how to combine multiple PDFs into one PDF file without the use of Adobe Professional. However, this can be done and can be done in Linux very very easily and of course, for free. This process requires you to install two packages: Ghostscript and PDFtk.

The above statement is somewhat inaccurate in that PDFtk is not needed to combine multiple PDF files into one PDF file. Ghostscript alone will do the job just fine. This isn't all that important except that PDFtk and needed dependencies can consume about 40 MB of disk space.

[Th3Professor]

The above statement is somewhat inaccurate in that PDFtk is not needed to combine multiple PDF files into one PDF file. Ghostscript alone will do the job just fine. This isn't all that important except that PDFtk and needed dependencies can consume about 40 MB of disk space.

ORLY?

How do you merge PDFs with gs?

[Th3Professor]

How would I create a PDF that would consist of some screenshots?

EDIT:
Okay I have somewhat of a progress on that one...
I saved a screenshot (.png) as ghostscripts (.ps) in gimp, then used:

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=firstANDsecond.pdf -dBATCH first.pdf second.pdf

However, I'm not sure how to save all the "png" as "ps" in one step. Any ideas?

[kaibob]

ORLY? How do you merge PDFs with gs?

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I understand your question. You merge PDF's with gs (Ghostscript) by way of the gs commandline contained in your above posting. The point I was trying to make was that PDFtk is not needed to do this. I'm sure that I misunderstand what you are asking, but I can't quite figure this out.