The euphoria of finding free and open source software to get your crucial tasks done is something special 
As a lover of the open source movement and community driven software efforts, I’m constantly on the lookout for great pieces of software (utilities or full blown apps) which aid me in accomplishing work tasks without depending on commercial apps.
The latest bit of free ware which I’ve quite taken to is: COMBINE PDFS 2.1
As its name suggests, Combine PDFs makes it really easy to combine a bunch of PDFs into a single document. That works great for me as I can stay away from bulky apps like Acrobat for such tasks. One good thing about using macOSX is that the OS has PDF publishing built in. In fact the Quartz 2D windowing system which the OS uses is based on the PDF format. I can export web pages from safari as PDFs, view them using Preview, edit and annotate them and also apply some nifty Quartz filters to reduce size and also perform colour corrections. Another great feature in OSX is that almost any application which has a Print option can output PDFs directly….. which is AWESOME.
Although the Automator feature of OSX does allow one to create a workflow to automate combining mulitple pdfs, it does require a bit of time to figure out and setup for a novice. That’s where “Combines PDFs” really helps. A zero learning curve, super fast and lightweight. It gets the job done in seconds. Here’s a complete list of its benefits:
Benefits:
- 100% Free:
Download the file and start using right away. Even the source code is included. The author does accept donations though. Get it here.
- Super fast launch:
On my 12″ iBook with 512 MB memory, it launches with just one bounce of the icon in the dock menu. That’s barely a second.
- Lightweight:
The application is barely 1.5 MB in size. I’m a big fan of lightweight apps which stick to one core feature and do it well rather than aiming to perform multiple things and risk code bloat.
- Simple Interface:
The interface is neat and clean. You instantly know what to do and how to do it. No manuals required for this one.
- Fast processing and progress indicator:
The actual process of stitching PDFs is quite fast. I’ve successfully combined 200+ pdfs within 3 minutes.
- Does Images too:
This is sweet…. I can combine PDFs as well as JPEG images into a single document. That’s really helpful!
- Split and Extract:
If you have a multipage PDF, you can open it and remove certain pages and save the pdf again. Surely an essential feature for many.
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Overall, a very helpful utility which every mac user should keep in the arsenal!
August 11, 2006 at 2:48 pm
The program works great to combine PDF’s however all of the data entered in PDF forms seems to be missing.
November 9, 2006 at 9:46 am
Amit? India? Blr?