Pages: Merge documents - how it works

Pages is a popular office program for OS X. You can find out how you can put your documents together in this practical tip.

Pages: Merging Documents - Problems

Merging individual documents into a new file that contains all the files can sometimes be very helpful.

• This is the case, for example, if an application should not be sent in many individual files, but in a document that contains the curriculum vitae, cover letter and attachments.
• As the owner of a Mac with OS X, many use the Word replacement Pages.
• The only annoying thing is that a function for merging several documents is simply not possible - at least not in the conventional way by dragging and dropping the files, possibly also from the thumbnail view in Pages.
• Apple officially gives "data protection concerns" as the reason, but whether this can be considered an explanation is more than questionable.

Pages: Merging Documents - Method 1

There are two alternative ways to remedy the situation when merging several documents, but they are much more complicated than a drag & drop procedure.

• The most common way is probably the classic "copy & paste".
• To do this, go to one of your documents that you want to merge with others.
• Then click anywhere in the text and then select the key combination "command + A".
• The entire text should now be highlighted in blue.
• Then use the key combination "command + C" to copy the entire text, then "command + V" to paste the whole font into a new document. Ideally, you should have opened an empty Pages document beforehand.
• This is how you proceed with all documents that you want to merge.
• However, two things are disadvantageous in this variant: firstly, it can easily happen that layout errors occur, i.e. incorrect paragraphs or pictures and texts that no longer match perfectly, always depending on the selected settings for that document, in which all individual files are put together.
• On the other hand, with this method, it is very time-consuming to change the order of the documents, because the individual passages have to be marked again, cut out with the command "command + X" and then inserted again.

Pages: Merging Documents - Method 2

The way to export and merge pdf. documents is not really easy and time-saving.

• To do this, open the documents to be merged individually in Pages.
• Then go to "File", "Export" and "PDF" in the upper sidebar.
• Then select the desired quality of the document and also the storage location.
• Do this with all files and ideally save the individual pdf. documents in the same location.
• Then open a new, blank document in Pages.
• Now you can drag and drop the pdf. documents one by one into Pages. But be careful: If you have a multi-page document, you must first open it in the "Preview" by double-clicking and insert all pages individually into Pages.
• There you usually have to adjust the individual documents to the page size.
• So this route is by no means really comfortable.

Although the assembly of Pages documents is quite complex, the Office application also contains many useful and user-friendly functions. We will explain in another practical tip how you can start the page numbers from page three.