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

43

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

19

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
@ChrisH Installing java version of pdftk whith sudo apt install pdftk-java with version 3.2.2-1 Works with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – itbojen Jan 26 '24 at 15:52
@itbojen yes, I use that. The reason I no longer use Ubuntu for clean installs is the switch from standard behaviour to anti-user modes (software should never refuse silently to do what it's told - if that's a feature of snaps as it seems to be, it means the entire snap system is fundamentally flawed), requiring workarounds. The upgrade from 20.04 to 22.04 is even worse, uninstalling packages (Firefox) that I'd made an effort to install properly , and replacing them with snaps. On my work machine I'll probably do a clean install of Debian instead of upgrading Ubuntu rather than fight snaps – Chris H Jan 26 '24 at 16:38

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