Concatenating PDF files in macOS

There are several methods to concatenate PDF files in macOS In all examples we will concatenate file1.pdf and file2.pdf and output the result to netid_report.pdf.

Method 1 - pdfjoin

MacTeX ships with the pdfjoin command. In terminal, execute

pdfjoin -o netid_report.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf

Method 2 - join.py

macOS ships with a built-in utility for concatenating PDF files. To concatenate file1.pdf with file2.pdf and output the result into netid_report.pdf, execute

$ "/System/Library/Automator/Combine PDF Pages.action/Contents/Resources/join.py" -o netid_report.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf

Please note:

• The quotes are important since the path to the script which joins PDFs contains spaces.
• You can join more than two files at once.

Method 3 - Preview

You may also use the built-in Preview application to join PDFs. See Apple's instructions.