---
title: Combine multiple PDF files
summary: >
  A quick note on how I got multiple PDF files combined into one single one
  on a linux command line.
  <small>The thumbnail was created with Google AI (Imagen 3).</small>
date: 2024-10-26T20:27:05+02:00
lastmod: 2024-12-08T11:13:52+0000
categories:
  - computerstuff
tags:
  - command-line
  - openbsd
  - freebsd
  - linux
---

I sometimes want to combine two or three PDF files into one (to print them
two pages on a sheet, mostly).

I did this recently and here I write it down again so I can find it again
(I will forget this until the next time I need it again):

```console
$ gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=output.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf ...
```

Found on [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2507766/merge-convert-multiple-pdf-files-into-one-pdf/2507825#2507825).

I also found another solution (further down at the link above) usable, but it produces much bigger files:

```console
$ qpdf --empty --pages *.pdf -- out.pdf
```