#  `cat`

Concatenate pages from input PDFs into a new PDF
## Usage
> pdftl `<input>...` `cat` `<spec>...` `output` `<file>` `[<option>...]`

## Details
The `cat` operation is used to assemble pages from one or more PDFs.
Input PDFs can be assigned to handles (e.g., `A=one.pdf B=two.pdf`).
Each spec may refer to these handles to select pages or page ranges.
When no handle is specified, the first input file is used.

Considerable effort is made to do "the right thing" as regards
hyperlinks and any outlines (table of contents). Since `cat` is quite
flexible, exactly what the right thing is sometimes not clearly
defined, but nevertheless if you do get a clearly incorrect output,
then please report it as a bug.
## Examples

> Concatenate two entire files
```
pdftl A=doc1.pdf B=doc2.pdf cat A B output combined.pdf
```

> Select a range of pages from one file:
```
pdftl in.pdf cat 1-5 9-end output partial.pdf
```

> Double the size of pages 1-5 and rotate east.
Zoom out (e.g., A4 to A3) and turn pages 9-end left.
```
pdftl in.pdf cat 1-5x2east 9-endleftz-1 output partial.pdf
```

> Concatenate pages 1-5 from a.pdf with pages 3,6,9,... from b.pdf
```
pdftl A=a.pdf B=b.pdf cat A1-5 B3-endstep3 output result.pdf
```


**Tags**: from_scratch, page_order

*Source: pdftl.operations.cat*

*Read online: [https://pdftl.readthedocs.io/en/stable/operations/cat.html](https://pdftl.readthedocs.io/en/stable/operations/cat.html)*

*Type: Operation*