Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Best way to mix Word and pdf into one pdf
- Thread starter hajime
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The situation is: I write some claims in 1-3 paragraphs in Words, then insert several pdf documents as supporting facts. Then, write a few paragraphs in Words, insert several pdf documents as supporting facts, etc.
It is inconvenience to do the following:
1. Write 1-3 paragraphs in Word
2. Convert to pdf
3. use a program to combine the pdf file in Step.2 with other existing pdf files
4. repeat step.1
I tried a few programs awhile ago to convert from pdf to Word. Did not work quiet well. Any good program that could do it perfectly? The pdf files include both scanned text and figures.
It is inconvenience to do the following:
1. Write 1-3 paragraphs in Word
2. Convert to pdf
3. use a program to combine the pdf file in Step.2 with other existing pdf files
4. repeat step.1
I tried a few programs awhile ago to convert from pdf to Word. Did not work quiet well. Any good program that could do it perfectly? The pdf files include both scanned text and figures.
Personally I'd just use preview to do all the extra pdf insertions in one go at the end.
1 write your word paragraphs
2 insert page break
3 write the next page of word paragraphs
4 insert page break
repeat process til you have all the word pages you need as one document.
5 print as a PDF and quit word
Next open the PDF version of your Word document with preview
1 go to Edit menu
2 chose Insert
3 chose Page from file
4 browse and pick the first of your PDFs
5 Once its inserted the preview sidebar will be visible, use the side bar to slide the pages up and down to get em in the desired running order (ie between page 1 of the word stuff and page 2 of the word stuff)
repeat for any other insertions you need to do between page 2 and page 3 of the word stuff
6 do a quick check of the running order to make sure everything is in right place and then hit Save
Still a bit of manual work but at least that way you're doing all the collating at the end (rather than the stop start process you're employing just now)
1 write your word paragraphs
2 insert page break
3 write the next page of word paragraphs
4 insert page break
repeat process til you have all the word pages you need as one document.
5 print as a PDF and quit word
Next open the PDF version of your Word document with preview
1 go to Edit menu
2 chose Insert
3 chose Page from file
4 browse and pick the first of your PDFs
5 Once its inserted the preview sidebar will be visible, use the side bar to slide the pages up and down to get em in the desired running order (ie between page 1 of the word stuff and page 2 of the word stuff)
repeat for any other insertions you need to do between page 2 and page 3 of the word stuff
6 do a quick check of the running order to make sure everything is in right place and then hit Save
Still a bit of manual work but at least that way you're doing all the collating at the end (rather than the stop start process you're employing just now)
Last edited:
Thanks for the procedure. I will try. What do you mean by "insert page break"?
I have a pdf file that contains scanned text and figures. For unknown reason, its file size is about 30MB. I tried to resave it as a Reduced PDF in Acrobat X Pro. The quality is so poor that I can't see the scanned words clearly. Other save options do not seem to be able to reduce the file size. Any idea?
insert page break ensures that your first paragraphs in the Word document are on a separate page from the next lot, so you can put your PDFs inbetween.
In word go to the 'Insert' Menu select the 'Break' option and in the list that appears chose Page Break.
re the 30MB PDF sounds like its made up of a collection of scanned pages stored as image files within a PDF
How many pages is it in total?
If its only a few pages in length then it might be worth exporting each page of it in turn to 150dpi JPEG images using Preview then collating them all back into a fresh preview document and saving that as a PDF.
However the more pages it consists of (and the more complex/noisy they are) then the less chance of an appreciable saving in space.
In word go to the 'Insert' Menu select the 'Break' option and in the list that appears chose Page Break.
re the 30MB PDF sounds like its made up of a collection of scanned pages stored as image files within a PDF
How many pages is it in total?
If its only a few pages in length then it might be worth exporting each page of it in turn to 150dpi JPEG images using Preview then collating them all back into a fresh preview document and saving that as a PDF.
However the more pages it consists of (and the more complex/noisy they are) then the less chance of an appreciable saving in space.
Thanks. There are about 70 pages. Is printing it out and then scanning at lower res as pdf a good way to do it? At which dpi 300x300 or 600x600 for example should I use?
at 70 pages they only need to be an average of 400KB per page to weigh in at that 30MB
Is likely why you cant compress it appreciably more than it already is
e.g. even assembled from 150dpi jpegs converted from very clean source (rather than scans) it could easily end up 10 to 15MB for a 70 page document
printing it and rescanning at 300dpi is likely to end up even larger than current one.
hard to say for sure without seeing the original document your dealing with but that's my best guess
Is likely why you cant compress it appreciably more than it already is
e.g. even assembled from 150dpi jpegs converted from very clean source (rather than scans) it could easily end up 10 to 15MB for a 70 page document
printing it and rescanning at 300dpi is likely to end up even larger than current one.
hard to say for sure without seeing the original document your dealing with but that's my best guess
yeh that's why I reckon you're unlikely to get it down to anything much smaller than it already is
What if later I need to change something that I wrote using Word? Do I have to repeat the whole process again?
Here's the method I use for doing this sort of thing:
First, print the Word / Pages / LibreOffice Writer / whatever document to PDF.
Second, open the two PDFs to be merged in Preview.
Third, drag the first PDF into the window for the second PDF. This will merge the documents.
Fourth, reorder pages by dragging their icons in the side bar to the correct place.
Fifth, print this new document to PDF.
First, print the Word / Pages / LibreOffice Writer / whatever document to PDF.
Second, open the two PDFs to be merged in Preview.
Third, drag the first PDF into the window for the second PDF. This will merge the documents.
Fourth, reorder pages by dragging their icons in the side bar to the correct place.
Fifth, print this new document to PDF.
But if I change the content of the pdf I wrote in Word later, do I have to redo everything?
Can you just make a new pdf of the Word file, then open it and the combined file with all the supporting documents..... then find the page you made changes on, delete that page from the combined file, and move/copy the revised page from the new pdf into the same spot as the page you just deleted? Then save the combined file, and delete the new pdf of the Word file.
That works with the full version of Adobe.
Did not think of this method... that will work with the solution I proposed as well.
If I open a pdf document and just use the command+c and command+v to copy and past the contents in the pdf document to the Word, will something unexpected happen? For example, not everything get copied or very large file size after I have completed the Word document and export as pdf?
Last edited: