How to combine PDF files into a big one on a PC?

Ghost script is a seriously neat, free method for merging PDFs, especially if you're comfortable with a bit of text. It's not a program with buttons you click; instead, it's a command-line tool. You type a command, press Enter, and it does the job on your PC—no uploading anywhere, and it's completely free.

Here’s the basic idea of how to combine PDF files using Ghost script. You’d open your terminal or command prompt, navigate to the folder with your PDFs, and type a command that looks something like this:

bash

gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=merged,pdf file1,pdf file2,pdf file3,pdf

• gs: This just starts the Ghost script program.
• -dBATCH & -dNOPAUSE: These tell Ghost script to get the job done without stopping to ask you questions .
• -q: This means "quiet mode." It keeps the program from cluttering your screen with extra info .
• -sDEVICE=pdfwrite: This says, "Hey, I want the output to be a PDF file" .
• -sOutputFile=merged,pdf: This is the name you're giving to your shiny, newly combined PDF.
• file1,pdf file2,pdf ...: Finally, you just list the files you want to merge, in the order you want them to appear.

And that's the core of it! Once you get the hang of it, you'll see it's a fast way to get exactly what you want. So, if you're looking for a free and private method on how to combine PDF files, Ghost script is a powerful, if slightly geeky, tool.

For a quick shortcut, you can even shorten the command by using -o instead of -sOutputFile=. For instance, the command gs -o combined.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf does the exact same thing.