How do I merge multiple PDFs and add a cover page?

You can do this in a few different ways depending on whether you want a quick manual method, a command-line solution, or code.

Option 1: Use PDF tools manually

If you already have:

• a cover page PDF
• several PDF files to merge

you can combine them with a PDF editor or merger tool by placing the cover page first, then the rest in order.

Common tools:

• Adobe Acrobat
• Preview on Mac
• PDFsam Basic (free)
• online PDF merge tools

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Option 2: Use a command-line tool

A very common approach is using qpdf or pdftk.

With pdftk

pdftk cover.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf cat output merged.pdf

With qpdf

qpdf --empty --pages cover.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf -- merged.pdf

If your cover page is just an image or a single-page document, convert it to PDF first.

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Option 3: Python script

If you want to automate it, you can use pypdf:

from pypdf import PdfMerger

merger = PdfMerger()
merger.append("cover.pdf")
merger.append("file1.pdf")
merger.append("file2.pdf")
merger.append("file3.pdf")

with open("merged.pdf", "wb") as f:
    merger.write(f)

merger.close()

Install it with:

pip install pypdf

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If the cover page is a new page you want to create

You can create a custom cover page as a PDF first, then merge it.

For example, using Python libraries like:

• reportlab to generate the cover
• pypdf to merge it with the rest

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Recommended simplest workflow

1. Create or prepare cover.pdf
2. Put all PDFs in the desired order
3. Merge them with pdftk, qpdf, or pypdf

If you want, I can show you:

• a Windows/Mac/Linux GUI method
• a Python script that creates the cover and merges everything
• or a one-line command for your specific files.