Combining pages in Acrobat Reader.

November 3, 2006 1:45 AM

Combining pages in Acrobat Reader.

I'm assembling the ages of a book on Acrobat Reader. At the moment I've only got the free version. What version do I need to upgrade to... or, is there a way to "beat the system" legally?

posted by bamassippi to computers & internet (5 comments total)

You might try pdftk, which is free.
posted by lukemeister at 2:21 AM on November 3, 2006

What do you mean that you're "assembling the [p]ages of a book on Acrobat Reader" -- you are somehow creating PDFs with Adobe Reader? I didn't think that was possible.

Using Adobe products, you need to get Acrobat Standard or Acrobat Professional to do fancier stuff with PDFs. The prices for everything in the Acrobat range are coming down, especially on older versions. You can get Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard Edition for a little over 200USD right now from Amazon, probably less from other places. Even the latest and fanciest version (8.0 Professional) is down to 400USD at Amazon and, again, probably less elsewhere.

Adobe also makes a cheap Word-to-PDF plug-in. I think it's called Acrobat Elements or Adobe Elements.

I read somewhere that Microsoft is adding PDF capabilities to its Office products. Another Word-to-PDF option, but future. Probably one reason Acrobat prices are coming down.
posted by pracowity at 2:29 AM on November 3, 2006

The open office word proessor, and word perfect should both save as pdf, and there are other free pdf editors.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:07 AM on November 3, 2006 [1 favorite]

If you are on, or have access to, a Mac, there is a Mac application called PDFLab that lets you decompose, merge, and reshuffle single or multiple PDF files. It would be perfect for what you are describing and is free.

There is also a Windows application called PDF Factory that looks like it might work for you too, but costs $50. There is a free demo available, but its not clear to me how crippled it might be.
posted by hwestiii at 5:42 AM on November 3, 2006

You might find PDF Conveter from Nuance useful. Single click magic converts Word or Excel doc to PDF or PDF to .doc. Only $50.
posted by X4ster at 12:28 PM on November 3, 2006