Description

This node.js library can merge multiple PDF documents, or parts of them, to one new PDF document. It's only dependency is pdf-lib so it can run in any javascript-only environment without any non-javascript dependencies.

Legacy notes

• If you are searching for the legacy version based on pdfjs please install a v3 release. Since v4 we use pdf-lib instead.
• If you are searching for a legacy version using CommonJS modules please install a v4 release. Since v5 we use the modern ESM ("import") instead of the CommonJS ("require) module standard.

This library is inspired by the PHP library PDFMerger and has a very similar API.

Installation

npm install --save pdf-merger-js

or global installation if you just want to use the cli tool:

npm install -g pdf-merger-js

Usage

CLI "pdf-merge"

Usage: pdf-merge [options] <inputFiles...>

merge multiple PDF documents, or parts of them, to a new PDF document

Options:
  -V, --version              output the version number
  -o, --output <outputFile>  Merged PDF output file path
  -v, --verbose              Print verbose output
  -s, --silent               do not print any output to stdout. Overwrites --verbose
  -h, --help                 display help for command

Example calls

Merge pages 1-2 from the first input with pages 1,2 and 5-7 from the second pdf document:

pdf-merge --output ./merged.pdf ./input1.pdf#1-2 ./input2.pdf#1,2,5-7

Get two pdf files from the an url and merge the first one with pages 2-3 from the second one:

pdf-merge --verbose --output ./sample.pdf Testfile.pdf https://pdfobject.com/pdf/sample.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Example.pdf#2-3

node.js

The node.js version has the following export functions:

• saveAsBuffer exports a merged pdf as an Buffer.
• save saves the pdf under the given filename.
• setMetadata set Metadata for producer, author, title or creator.
• reset resets the internal state of the document, to start again.

async node.js example

import PDFMerger from 'pdf-merger-js';

var merger = new PDFMerger();

(async () => {
  await merger.add('pdf1.pdf');  //merge all pages. parameter is the path to file and filename.
  await merger.add('pdf2.pdf', 2); // merge only page 2
  await merger.add('pdf2.pdf', [1, 3]); // merge the pages 1 and 3
  await merger.add('pdf2.pdf', '4, 7, 8'); // merge the pages 4, 7 and 8
  await merger.add('pdf3.pdf', '3 to 5'); //merge pages 3 to 5 (3,4,5)
  await merger.add('pdf3.pdf', '3-5'); //merge pages 3 to 5 (3,4,5)

  // Set metadata
  await merger.setMetadata({
    producer: "pdf-merger-js based script",
    author: "John Doe",
    creator: "John Doe",
    title: "My live as John Doe"
  });

  await merger.save('merged.pdf'); //save under given name and reset the internal document
  
  // Export the merged PDF as a nodejs Buffer
  // const mergedPdfBuffer = await merger.saveAsBuffer();
  // fs.writeSync('merged.pdf', mergedPdfBuffer);
})();

Browser

The Browser version has the following export functions:

• saveAsBuffer exports a merged pdf as an Uint8Array.
• saveAsBlob exports a merged pdf as a Blob.
• save starts a file-download directly in the browser.
• setMetadata set Metadata for producer, author, title or creator.
• reset resets the internal state of the document, to start again.

async react example

import PDFMerger from 'pdf-merger-js/browser';
import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';

// files: Array of PDF File or Blob objects
const Merger = (files) => {
  const [mergedPdfUrl, setMergedPdfUrl] = useState();

  useEffect(() => {
    const render = async () => {
      const merger = new PDFMerger();

      for(const file of files) {
        await merger.add(file);
      }

      await merger.setMetadata({
        producer: "pdf-merger-js based script"
      });

      const mergedPdf = await merger.saveAsBlob();
      const url = URL.createObjectURL(mergedPdf);

      return setMergedPdfUrl(url);
    };

    render().catch((err) => {
      throw err;
    });

    () => setMergedPdfUrl({});
  }, [files, setMergedPdfUrl]);

  return !data ? (
    <>Loading</>
  ) : (
    <iframe
      height={1000}
      src={`${mergedPdfUrl}`}
      title='pdf-viewer'
      width='100%s'
    ></iframe>
  );
};

Similar libraries

• pdf-merge has a dependency on PDFtk.
• easy-pdf-merge has a dependency on the Apache PDFBox® - A Java PDF Library.
• pdfmerge has a dependency on python and PyPDF2.