Merge PDFs Into a Clean Proposal Pack: Order, Page Sizes, and Final Compression
How to combine Word exports, scans, and spreadsheet printouts into one professional PDF pack: plan the order, split out only the pages you need, tame mixed page sizes, and compress the result so it actually fits in an email.
Prerequisites
- The individual documents for your pack: cover letter, main document, scans, spreadsheets
- Omnvert Merge PDF, Split PDF, and PDF Compress tools
Step-by-step
- 1
Convert everything to PDF first
A merge tool combines PDFs, so every ingredient has to be a PDF before you start. Export the cover letter and proposal body from Word (or convert the .docx online). For spreadsheets, do not just hit export blindly: set the print area to the range you actually want, choose landscape if the table is wide, and use "fit to one page wide" so columns are not chopped across pages — then export to PDF. Scans (signed forms, certificates) should be saved as PDF at scan time if your scanner offers it; otherwise convert the images. Doing the conversions first means the merge step becomes pure assembly, with no surprises.
- 2
Name the files so the order is obvious
Before uploading anything, rename the pieces with numeric prefixes: 01-cover-letter.pdf, 02-proposal.pdf, 03-budget.pdf, 04-appendix-a-cv.pdf, and so on. This does two things. It forces you to decide the reading order while you can still think about it calmly, and it makes the order visible at a glance in any file manager and in the merge tool's upload list. It also pays off weeks later, when a revision request arrives and you need to rebuild the pack with one piece swapped — the numbering tells you exactly where the new version goes.
- 3
Split first when you only need part of a document
Often one source is a long document of which the pack needs only a slice — three pages of a master rate card, one section of a company profile. Extract those pages with the Split PDF tool before merging: upload the long PDF, choose the page range you need, and download it as its own small file. Split-then-merge is much cleaner than the reverse — merging everything and then trying to delete unwanted pages from the middle of a combined file is fiddly and error-prone, and it is easy to leave a stray page behind.
- 4
Check page sizes and orientation before merging
Merging keeps each page exactly as it is, so a pack built from A4 Word exports, Letter-sized scans, and landscape spreadsheet pages will flip and resize as the reader scrolls — technically fine, visually messy. Open each piece and note the odd ones out. The best fixes happen at the source: re-export the spreadsheet scaled to portrait A4 if it fits legibly, and re-scan crooked or oddly sized scans with the paper size set explicitly. Rotated pages that display sideways should be rotated and saved upright before the merge. Aim for one dominant page size, and accept exceptions knowingly rather than discovering them in the final pack.
- 5
Upload and arrange in the Merge PDF tool
Open the Merge PDF tool and upload all the prepared pieces at once. Check the list order against your numbering — if anything is out of place, drag it to the right position before merging. This is your last cheap chance to reorder; after the merge, moving a document means redoing the whole step. When the order matches your plan, run the merge and download the combined file. Note that password-protected inputs cannot be merged as-is: remove their protection first (you need their password for that), then include the unlocked copies.
- 6
Review the combined pack page by page
Open the merged PDF and flip through every single page — not a skim, an actual pass. You are looking for: duplicated documents (easy to upload the same file twice), missing pieces, blank pages that scanners love to append, sideways pages you missed in step 4, and section boundaries landing where you expect. Check that the page count equals the sum of the parts. If your pack has a table of contents page, verify its page numbers against the merged reality, since numbering shifts the moment you add or remove a piece.
- 7
Compress the final pack for email
A pack that includes scans can easily be tens of megabytes, and many mail servers reject attachments beyond roughly 20–25 MB. Run the merged file through the PDF Compress tool as the last step — compressing once at the end is simpler than compressing each piece and beats double-compressing the scans. After compressing, open the result and zoom into the scanned pages: signatures and small print must stay legible. If they degrade, use a milder compression setting; a slightly larger file that reads well beats a small one that looks photocopied.
Choosing an order that reads well
A pack is a guided tour, not a pile. The convention that works for proposals — and adapts to legal appendices and HR bundles — is: cover letter or summary first, so the reader knows what they are holding; the main document second; financials and terms third; supporting evidence last, as lettered or numbered appendices in the order the main document cites them. Whatever scheme you choose, keep it identical across every pack you send to the same organization; reviewers handling many submissions notice consistency, and they notice its absence more.
Common merge gotchas
- The same file uploaded twice — always count pages after merging
- Scans that are rotated 90° and only noticed by the recipient
- A single high-resolution scan quietly tripling the pack's size
- Password-protected inputs that fail to merge until unlocked
- A cover page table of contents whose page numbers no longer match
Store the individual numbered PDFs in a folder next to the final pack. When the client asks you to swap the budget or add an appendix — and they will — you rebuild in two minutes instead of hunting for source files or, worse, splitting your own merged output back apart.