Merge all pdf files from one folder

Question

I have 250 pdf files in one folder that I want to merge in one document. The order does not matter. Is there a simple way of doing it?

I can use PDF-Shuffler as suggested here https://askubuntu.com/a/2805/247771 but the progam hangs for 10 minutes befor it has loaded all the pdfs.

Can I achive this maybe with an inline command like

pdftk *.pdf output mergedfiles.pdf

?

Your pdftk command is just missing a `cat` I think: `pdftk *.pdf cat output mergedfiles.pdf` — steeldriver, Feb 24 '17 at 17:04
@steeldriver if you write an answer I would mark it as chekced. — Adam, Mar 26 '18 at 16:15

jbrock · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-24T17:36:31.413

41

I would use pdfunite. It is nice and simple. cd to your directory. Then use something like this:

pdfunite *.pdf all.pdf

(Before running, make sure you don't already have a file called all.pdf in that directory.)

edited Feb 24 '17 at 17:36

answered Feb 24 '17 at 17:22

jbrock

2

Using `pdfunite version 0.68.0 ` with *Ubuntu 18.10*, I had to use `pdfunite * all.pdf`. When I tried `pdfunite *.pdf all.pdf`, it gave me the following error `I/O Error: Couldn't open file '*.pdf': No such file or directory. Syntax Error: Could not merge damaged documents ('*.pdf') `. – edesz May 05 '19 at 19:47
Works! Perfect!!! Thanks!! – ambigus9 Feb 15 '23 at 16:47

score 17 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '18 at 07:53

17

Thanks to steeldriver who showed me that this is doing the job:

pdftk *.pdf cat output mergedfiles.pdf

answered Apr 06 '18 at 07:53

Adam

1

I have Kubuntu 19.10. this pdftk does not work. – rob grune Jan 25 '20 at 06:59
@robgrune pdftk in recent Ubuntu versions is a snap, which only works in your home folder, but fails silently elsewhere - like /tmp which is where I use it the most. Because the failure is silent (a particularly dumb misfeature of snaps) it's caught me out more than once, but a proper installation has worked on all (X|K)ubuntu versions for me for many years. Not also that you can't overwrite an output file in the same folder this way, but that error is clear – Chris H Jun 07 '23 at 14:27

score 11 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 05 '21 at 06:21

11

You can use qpdf as pdftk is not available in Ubuntu Bionic:

qpdf --empty --pages *.pdf -- out.pdf

edited Mar 05 '21 at 06:21

Zanna

answered Dec 13 '18 at 03:52

SaTa

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 24 '17 at 17:16

4

sudo apt-get install gs
gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=target.pdf -dBATCH xx.pdf xx.pdf xx.pdf ...
you can get all filenames through ls -l *.pdf | awk command

Wish it helps . ^_^

answered Feb 24 '17 at 17:16

tedyli

On Ubuntu 16.04 I get `E: Package 'gs' has no installation candidate`. – MERose Aug 29 '17 at 19:42

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered May 22 '20 at 10:03

1

You can use pdftools:

pdftools --input-dir dir_with_pdfs --output output.pdf

answered May 22 '20 at 10:03

robertspierre

5 Answers5