How to merge PDFs, photos and notes into one file

Most real-world paperwork is a pile of formats: a two-page form as a PDF, a receipt photographed on a phone, a scanned signature page and a short covering note typed in a text file. Sending four attachments invites confusion, and half of them get lost in the reply chain. One PDF, in the right order, solves it.

Step 1 — gather and name everything first

Before opening any tool, put every file in one folder and rename them with a number in front: 01-cover.txt, 02-form.pdf, 03-receipt.jpg. Sorting by name then gives you the exact order you want, and you avoid rearranging rows one by one later.

Step 2 — combine them

1. Open the Merge Files tool and drop in the whole folder selection at once — PDFs, JPG, PNG or WebP photos and .txt notes can all go in together.
2. Check the list: each row shows the file type and size, so a wrong or half-downloaded file is easy to spot.
3. Drag rows, or use the up and down buttons, until the order matches your numbering.
4. Click Merge into one PDF. Photos each become a full page scaled to fit, and text files are typeset onto A4 pages.

Step 3 — check the result before sending

Open the merged file and scroll through it once. You are looking for three things: pages in the intended order, photos the right way up, and nothing accidentally duplicated. If a photo is sideways, rotate it in your photo app — or fix it in the PDF Editor — and merge again.

Keeping the file small enough to email

Phone photos are the usual culprit: four 5 MB pictures make a 20 MB PDF. If the merged file is too big for the recipient's inbox, run it through the Compress PDF tool afterwards rather than compressing each photo by hand — you get to see the real before and after size.

Merging copies pages as they are, so text in the original PDFs stays selectable and searchable. Only the photographed pages remain images.

Common mistakes

• Adding the same file twice — the row list is the finished order, so scan it before clicking Merge.
• Forgetting password-protected PDFs cannot be merged. Remove the password in your reader first.
• Merging a Word document directly. Convert it with Word to PDF, then add the PDF.