Yosemite: Preview Won't Manipulate or Merge PDFs

I like PDFSuite.app. It does numerous things. I type up 8 page PDFs and shrink them to e-mailable size. It has other features also.

Don't remember if I paid for it.

Thanks anthominati, printing to a pdf saved my combined files in a new pdf file. Easy but unintuitive solution.

For those who didn't notice his post, combine files by opening one, show the thumbnails, then just drag and drop other files that you want to include in one file.

Then: File / Print and in the bottom left corner of the interface where it says PDF click the dropdown and select "Save as PDF...", select where you want to save the file and print. The result should be all of your pages combined in one file.

Hi I now know how to convert images into one PDF file using Preview in Yosemite!

So folks, lo and behold, the easiest steps of getting back our beloved function of Preview.

1. Convert your first image into a PDF

(Open Image/ Preview/ File/ Export as PDF)

2. Open your newly created PDF

3. Go to Edit/ Insert/ Page from File

4. The click all the images you want to include

5. File/ Save

Viola!

gsilas wrote:

ok, so I have a workaround....

1) go to FINDER, highlight all the documents you want to combine (doesn't matter is JPG or PDF or other).

2) Right click on the highlighted files and choose "Open using Preview"

3) Once open, choose PRINT from Preview file menu

4) in the print drop-down box, DO NOT click PRINT, instead, towards the bottom left, click PDF and choose "SAVE AS PDF".

5) Choose location to save to , file name, and you are done

I tried your workaround and it succeeded to a point. Thanks.The one thing it missed was the markups that were added to some of the PDF files. I had entered some text and a few arrows on a couple of documents. Those markups were missing from the newly saved combined file. I could reenter the markups again, after combining them, but that is extra work. Also, the files must be in the exact order in the Finder that one wants them in the new document because they can not be moved by dragging them around in the thumbnail sidebar. For what it's worth, the Automator workflow here does the same thing as your workaround and has the same missing markup problem.

UPDATE on my previous reply:

After several different experiments and reading through all the posts in this thread, I learned that combining your workaround with a tip provided in the post by sjmcdonald7 solves the issue when using annotated PDF files:

1. Before combining documents, export each of them via File/Export as PDF. This permanently attaches the annotations to the file.

2. Then use your workaround or the Automator workflow linked here.

The newly combined file will retain the annotations. (Note: You still won't be able to drag the pages to rearrange them after combining the files.)

Too bad Apple changed the way this worked when moving from Mavericks to Yosemite.

Litag8r,

Good to know about PDFPenPro. Thanks.

i found a way around.

first, you select all the pdfs and open them in preview.

next, you click on print.

after that you see the pdf box down next to the question mark in the left side corner .

you click on pdf and then on the selection save as pdf. voila, you have merged them into one.

I really miss the Insert from File functionality. The menu item is now worthless and so frustrating. I too wish Mac would fix this. The change takes something that was really useful and easy and has bungled it.

Worked for me

Help still shows merge/delete etc., should work, but its all grey'd out

anyway's thanks

11" Air 2010 running Yos

My solution was to move the files to an older machine with 10.5.8 and Preview 4.2. Everything worked just as it should. I did in five minutes what I fooled around with for an hour the previous day.

My biggest problem with the new version is that the performance is inconsistent. I was able to add some pages to another pdf, but not others. Some of the pages added included highlighting, while others did not. At times, I thought an addition would fail, but Preview just required a lot of time, five minutes in one case. The addition was only about eight pages, so this was not a massive transfer. I did some multi-page transfers, and had some, but not all, of the pages transfer.

None of the workarounds in this discussion worked for me. The idea of opening multiple documents at once and then printing them all as a single pdf does work, but the pages must all be in order first as they cannot be rearranged after being printed as a pdf.

What surprises me is that no one from Apple is contributed to this discussion. That suggests that Apple did not intentionally disable certain features, and that Apple has not figured out what the problem is.

150403Kenneth wrote:

What surprises me is that no one from Apple is contributed to this discussion. That suggests that Apple did not intentionally disable certain features, and that Apple has not figured out what the problem is.

This is a COMMUNITY forum. Apple staff do not reply to posts here. It is just for users to discuss issues between themselves. Apple does have mechanisms to interact with users about bugs, but this isn't it.

I just found the solution. I didn't read the entire string so I don't know if someone else has answered this. There is a youtube video showing the steps. He explains it better than I could. I was shown how to do this in my Apple one on one training but when I tried it at home, using methods similar to what I read in this string, it didn't work. Apparently, it still can be done, but the method is totally different from how it was done earlier.

Search youtube using the videos title

Combine multiple pdfs in Preview app and reduce file size Mac OS Yosmemite

Thanks steffrussel - This worked perfectly for me. Now if we can get Apple to rewrite the Help pages with these instructions. :-)

I had the same issue but opened a case and eventually got to a workaround. Before on Mavericks I could merge multiple PDFs without issue. Since upgrading to Yosemite, it no longer worked.

The workaround Apple provided me is found in this article - http://macintoshhowto.com/pdf/how-to-merge-2-pdf-files-with-os-x-mavericks-10-9. html

Basically you use the Edit > Insert > Page from File... then select one or multiple files

Apple admits this is a work around and told me the only way to (likely) fix this is to wipe the disk and install fresh (a re-install is not adequate).