jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I have about 180 PDF files I'd like to combine into one document, arranged alphabetically. I'm using "SmartPDF," but I can't put the files in alphabetical order. I imported them alphabetically, but they arrived in somewhat random order. This is an online program, rather than a download. I can move them, but they keep moving on their own. I'll make some changes, and a couple of minutes later, the files have moved. Is there a better program to use?

bamfordr Loc: Campbell CA

If my experience with bulk insert in Acrobat is any guide, where to insert (before or after page x) works correctly but the inserted files arrive in an order I was never able to anticipate.

What I recall doing was building sections, file by file, and then assembling the sections flle by file. Tedious. Painful. And I’m pretty sure I could have taken a few weeks to create a macro that might have done what I wanted. Maybe.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Well, I just tried SmallPDF again, and it kept the 186 files in the proper order. It took several attempts before it didn't change the order. Odd.

EDIT: It looks like this is free for 14 days. After that, it costs $108/year.

nut4golf Loc: Windsor, CT

PDFexpert is a tool that would handle that (and much more) if you're Mac based. https://pdfexpert.com/

$80 one time license covers 3 Macs

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks for that. I don't have a printer connected to my Macs, and most of my work is done on a Windows machine, but I'll take a look at that.

EDIT: It's free, but it isn't.

"To be fair, PDF Expert 7’s “free” isn’t exactly the same as paying $10 for the previous app. You won’t be able to sign, password protect, or merge documents, nor add, delete, and extract pages. That’s because these features have been moved to a $50 per year Pro subscription, along with advanced editing features formerly available as a $20 in-app upgrade."

I'm not going to sign up for anything that a subscription.

domcomm Loc: Denver, CO

Another way to get them to stay in order is to number them at the beginning of the title.

pgerardi Loc: Bethel Park, PA

I have good luck with PDF Sam and price can’t be beat. Might want to take a look at. Can’t give you much on the technical side other than to say that works

jbk224 Loc: Long Island, NY

Adobe Acrobat Pro allows you to do everything that you want. Combining files, setting the page order at the onset, and changing page locations after it has been first combined. And yes, it is not free.

Bunko.T Loc: Western Australia.

What about renaming the files with prefix in alpha/numeric format.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

Try 'PDF Expert' or Quoppa's 'PDF Studio 11' that let you append a pdf on to the end or insert into any other pdf. Short learning curve.

jimvanells Loc: Augusta, GA

I have used "Cute PDF" for about 20 years and it does what you want easily. There may be free trial but I think I only paid about $10-20 and have moved it to several computers of the years.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

I mostly use a Mac these days, whose standard software package includes a file viewer that includes PDFs, and allows rearranging of pages just by clicking and moving them in the sidebar of the viewer window.

But on the Windows boxes that I used before, I had something called Adolix Split & Merge PDF, that I know allowed me to combine and organize multiple PDF files. There was a free version, and a "pro" version that cost $10-20 or so for a permanent license (not a subscription.) I think the free version had some limits on how many files and/or pages could be handled, but I don't remember if I ever ran into the limit and don't remember if I bought the pro version or not. I know I used it to organize scans of multiple chapters from a multi-hundred-page family genealogy manuscript that somebody had typed up years ago, and that I finally decided to scan for preservation and family distribution purposes.

I never had a need for all the power of a "real" PDF production suite, like the full Adobe Acrobat, and so never wanted to pay their prices. But for what I DID need the Adolix product did the job, and if it's still out there it might be worth looking at.

djet Loc: Burbank, CA

I've used this free program:
https://icecreamapps.com/PDF-Split-and-Merge/

John Sh Loc: Toronto, Australia

A totally different take on this. There is a site called "ZAMZAR" that does conversions for free. Convert your PDF's to Word, combine them in the order you want then reprint out of Word to a PDF.
https://www.zamzar.com/

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

If you have a Mac, Apple Preview can do that.