I have written journal entries on the computer using a word processor
(WordPerfect 12), and each entry is its own document or file.  I would
like to turn my many files into one document (like a book) and convert
the whole document into PDF format (a conversion WordPerfect 12 can
do, if I have all the pages in the right order).  Is there a way to
"merge" or combine multiple documents into one using the computer
without having to scan each page?  (I have more than 300 pages to my
journal.)  Specifically, I want to know if I can do this using
WordPerfect 12 and set the order of my pages as well before converting
the whole thing into PDF format.

Hi Kit_Mayo-ga,


Our former Webmaster at the company I work for introduced me to a
great piece of software, which I believe will solve your problem very
simply and very nicely.

FreewarePDF 
http://freewarepdf.com/

FreewarePDF is a free standalone PDF creator software which handles
tons of functions I had always assumed a several hundred dollar
program would be required to do.

From their site:
Merging PDF files
Merge any number of different file types, including (parts of) PDF
files, into one PDF.

We have seen above how you can create your own PDF files from almost
any application. Wouldn't it be great if you could make a PDF document
containing bits of content from more than one application: one page
spreadsheet, two pages of word processing and then throwing in a few
web pages for good measure? With PDFCreator you can. And by using a
PDF viewer as source application you can even make PDFs containing
(parts of) other PDFs. Let's have a look at how it can be done.
combining print tasks to one PDF in PDFCreator

When printing anything to PDFCreator you'll be presented with a window
allowing you to edit the document title, date, author, subject or
keywords. On the bottom of that window you'll find several buttons:
Cancel, Waiting, Options, eMail and Save. Most of these buttons don't
need further explanation, but the power of one of them may easily be
overseen: the marvellous Waiting-button.

Clicking the Waiting-button opens the main window of PDFCreator. It
should look something like the screenshot in the previous section.
What clicking the Waiting-button basically makes PDFCreator do is ...
uhm, ... wait. Hence its name. PDFCreator will wait for you to add
another 'print' job, for you to change the order of the existing jobs,
or for you - here comes the magic word - to combine existing jobs. As
soon as you're ready adding, changing order and combining jobs, click
one to select it for 'printing' and choose Print from the Document
menu or press Ctrl+P. The old familiar window will reappear, and
clicking Save will then bring up a window asking for a name and
location to save your new PDF file.

Just think for a moment how powerful this combining tool is. You could
use it to insert pages into a PDF file: first print the first half of
the PDF, print the page you created yourself, print the rest of the
PDF, combine the three into one job and then save it to a new PDF.
Combining becomes even more powerful when used together with Foxit PDF
reader's 'Type Writer' tool.

If you have any questions please request a clarification before rating
this answer, it will give me a chance to clarify anything that I might
have left out.

[-- Mother911-ga --]

---

Request for Answer Clarification by kit_mayo-ga on 10 Aug 2006 11:51 PDT

Thank you for your answer.  I got the program, and it's a little
tricky to operate, but I'm glad you mentioned it to me.  Now, when I
print the document and push wait, is that when I add the other
document to the first?  Is there an easier way to add documents to the
queue without having to do it one by one?  Are these questions
considered clarification questions, or do I need to open another
question on Google Answers?

---

Clarification of Answer by mother911-ga on 10 Aug 2006 13:12 PDT

I think this should be handled as a clarification, no need for a new question.

When printing anything to PDFCreator there will be a window where you
can edit the document title, date, subject etc. At the bottom of that
window are several buttons, one is labled WAITING. Click on WAITING,
and this window will open:
http://freewarepdf.com/merge.png
As you can see in that window, you simply click on DOCUMENT in the top
navigation bar, and you can add and remove files, use top, bottom, up
and down to change the order of the documents. Once you have them
ordered as you would like them, click on one to select it for
printing, choose PRINT from the DOCUMENT menu and a new window will
appear, click SAVE and it will ask you for the name of the new PDF to
create, and the location you would like it saved to.

Please let me know if this is clear.

[-- Mother911-ga --]

A very good and very thorough answer, and the clarification was good
as well.  The answer was prompt, and although it took me a little bit
to get used to, I was satisfied with the answer I received.  The more
exceptional piece of information came with the comments, and that was
easier to work out than the PDF freeware.  I will use Google Answers
in the future.

You can certainly do this from Word with Acrobat Professional.

Presumably you can similarly convert each Word Perfect doc into pdf
format and then assemble them into one big doc.

Of course, Acrobat Pro is pretty expensive!

Maybe there are also other ways forward?

The usual way of doing this is to create a master document with links
to sub-documents. The sub-documents would be the individual files that
are the pages of the journal. The whole document could then be
exported to pdf using standard WordPerfect facilities. Original pages
can still be edited in situ, and the order of pages can be changed
simply by changing the order of the links in the master document.

The process is explained in detail by any one of several links found
by googling for 'wordperfect master document'.

Agreed, master/subdocuments is the way to go for any long document.

Thank you all for your comments.  I have tried the master document
feature and I am just thrilled at how well it worked.  Thank you so
much for your answers.  I will be starting a masters program soon, and
this feature will make my thesis writing a piece of cake.  Excellent!