Creating and merging pdf documents
Heather recently was asked how I would combine multiple documents in different formats into one single document. My immediate response was to create a pdf document, but I didn’t detail how I would accomplish this. I would take a two step approach.
First, I would create pdf documents from any document that wasn’t a pdf document. One of the easiest ways to do this, is to use a product called Cute PDF. Luckily for us, the application is free. Once installed, it functions as a printer. Any application that can print will be able to use the application. Simply open your documents and print them to pdf by selecting the pdf printer.
Once all of your documents are converted to pdf, you can combine them into one large document using a merge application. One such applications is called pdf split and merge. The application allows you to add pdf documents and reorder them and then save them as a new pdf document.
One word of warning; decide whether you really need all of the documents to be combined into one document. A large monolithic document may be completely unnecessary if the individual documents are properly indexed or named appropriately. Dragging huge documents across the network isn’t very resource friendly. You also may have a problem with the people reading your document not being able to find the information inside of your large document. Utilities such as Cute PDF doesn’t have the ability to create indexes and because of this you users will have to execute searches to find appropriate areas within your document.
I just discovered that when I scan something, I can save it as a PDF file. I didn’t know that.
Is there a difference in the quality if I scan it to create the PDF rather than using a program like cute PDF?
You probably would never notice the difference. Adobe Acrobat gives large amounts of detail that isn’t available in the third party creators. But all the rest of the programs have very similar features.