"How can I combine my Office documents into a single PDF?"

By Rowan Hanna
PDF Store Support Team
Issue 14 for 2005

There are many different kinds of PDF products. Last issue, we had a look at applications and components used for PDF creation and manipulation, but there are also tools that add on to existing applications. In the case of Acrobat, these are known as "plug-ins," and can be used to either add specialized functionality not normally contained in the basic product, or to streamline the process of using that powerful application.

"So how do I combine my MS Word report with my Excel spreadsheets and graphs?" I hear you cry. Acrobat and Nitro PDF Desktop are both capable of natively merging different PDF documents or on an interactive basis. You can also merge documents in a nominated order using the File > Create PDF > Combine Multiple Files menu option in Nitro PDF Desktop, or the File > Create PDF > From Multiple Files option in Acrobat. It's also possible to achieve this functionality by the use of tools such as AdLib eXpress or BCL AllPDF.

Watch this space! There'll be more workflow tool highlights in the coming weeks. Until next time, please browse PDF Store's Split/Merge aisle for the complete range of PDF splitting and merging tools.

1. Click the restore down button for the Adobe Reader window, which is second from the right at the very top of the screen. The window should be covering part of your screen, leaving the background partially visible.
2. Locate the folder containing the one or more PDF files you wish to open. Select the appropriate PDFs.
3. Drag the files into the Reader pane.