merging all pdf files in a folder using excel vba

Question

In a folder, I have only pdf files which were originally created by exporting excel worksheets. Now I would like to merge these file to one and send it via email.

I know how to send a single document via email in excel vba. But I have absolutely no clue how to do the merging part. Could someone help me?

While searching on the internet, I came across different websites such as https://wellsr.com/vba/2017/word/combine-pdfs-with-vba-and-adobe-acrobat/ which are more or less deal with this question. But I don't really s understand these codes...

Answer 1

I am almost certain that VBA won't be able to do this without Adobe Acrobat installed. If you have Acrobat, you can try this.

Sub MergePDFs()
' ZVI:2013-08-27 http://www.vbaexpress.com/forum/showthread.php?47310-Need-code-to-merge-PDF-files-in-a-folder-using-adobe-acrobat-X
' Reference required: "VBE - Tools - References - Acrobat"

  ' --> Settings, change to suit
  Const MyPath = "C:Temp"            ' Path where PDF files are stored
   Const MyFiles = "1.pdf,2.pdf,3.pdf"  ' List of PDFs to ne merged
  Const DestFile = "MergedFile.pdf"   ' The name of the merged file
  ' <-- End of settings

  Dim a As Variant, i As Long, n As Long, ni As Long, p As String
  Dim AcroApp As New Acrobat.AcroApp, PartDocs() As Acrobat.CAcroPDDoc

  If Right(MyPath, 1) = "" Then p = MyPath Else p = MyPath & ""
  a = Split(MyFiles, ",")
  ReDim PartDocs(0 To UBound(a))

  On Error GoTo exit_
  If Len(Dir(p & DestFile)) Then Kill p & DestFile
  For i = 0 To UBound(a)
    ' Check PDF file presence
    If Dir(p & Trim(a(i))) = "" Then
      MsgBox "File not found" & vbLf & p & a(i), vbExclamation, "Canceled"
      Exit For
    End If
    ' Open PDF document
    Set PartDocs(i) = CreateObject("AcroExch.PDDoc")
    PartDocs(i).Open p & Trim(a(i))
    If i Then
      ' Merge PDF to PartDocs(0) document
      ni = PartDocs(i).GetNumPages()
      If Not PartDocs(0).InsertPages(n - 1, PartDocs(i), 0, ni, True) Then
        MsgBox "Cannot insert pages of" & vbLf & p & a(i), vbExclamation, "Canceled"
      End If
      ' Calc the number of pages in the merged document
      n = n + ni
      ' Release the memory
      PartDocs(i).Close
      Set PartDocs(i) = Nothing
    Else
      ' Calc the number of pages in PartDocs(0) document
      n = PartDocs(0).GetNumPages()
    End If
  Next

  If i > UBound(a) Then
    ' Save the merged document to DestFile
    If Not PartDocs(0).Save(PDSaveFull, p & DestFile) Then
      MsgBox "Cannot save the resulting document" & vbLf & p & DestFile, vbExclamation, "Canceled"
    End If
  End If

exit_:

  ' Inform about error/success
  If Err Then
    MsgBox Err.Description, vbCritical, "Error #" & Err.Number
  ElseIf i > UBound(a) Then
    MsgBox "The resulting file is created:" & vbLf & p & DestFile, vbInformation, "Done"
  End If

  ' Release the memory
  If Not PartDocs(0) Is Nothing Then PartDocs(0).Close
  Set PartDocs(0) = Nothing

  ' Quit Acrobat application
  AcroApp.Exit
  Set AcroApp = Nothing

End Sub

http://www.vbaexpress.com/forum/showthread.php?47310-Need-code-to-merge-PDF-files-in-a-folder-using-adobe-acrobat-X

Also, you can use Python for this kind of task, without any special, or expensive, additional apps.

import glob
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader

def merger(output_path, input_paths):
    pdf_writer = PdfFileWriter()

    for path in input_paths:
        pdf_reader = PdfFileReader(path)
        for page in range(pdf_reader.getNumPages()):
            pdf_writer.addPage(pdf_reader.getPage(page))

    with open(output_path, 'wb') as fh:
        pdf_writer.write(fh)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    paths = glob.glob('C:/your_path_here/*.pdf')
    paths.sort()
    merger('pdf_merger.pdf', paths)

https://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2018/04/11/splitting-and-merging-pdfs-with-python/