Merge front and back scans

[ltjc_editor1]

I'm aware Acrobat Pro DC can emulate a duplex scanner by first scanning the front, then the back of a stack of papers (which by the way never works for me... I get chronic messages that the scan has been cancelled at various stages), but what if you already have two separate PDF files, one with all the front sides and a second with all of the back sides and want to automatically merge them together as if they had been scanned with a duplex scanner in the first place? As a full Adobe Creative Suite annual subscriber, it's frustrating being pointed to purchase a third-party script. This feature must exist somewhere from Adobe?

[Nancy OShea]

Got to Tools > Merge documents.  Then go to Tools > Organize pages.

[ltjc_editor1]

Sorry, I may not have fully explained. I'm aware of the ability manually rearrange pages. What i'm looking for is the ability to process large documents, say 50 pages of fronts, 50 pages of backs scanned in reverse order, combine them into a single PDF, then have them collated automatically, ie move page 100 to page 2, page 98 (now the new page 100) to page 4, etc, Doing this manually in "organize pages" isn't really viable. Most consumer/small office MFP don't have reliable duplex paper feed scanning if at all.

[Bernd Alheit]

You can use the Javascript method movePage for this.

[victorj35197252]

Adobe doesn't do this. I use PDFSAM basic. It's free. It also combines files that have editing permissions locked with a password. I still use Adobe for everything other than these two processes. It would be nice if Adobe just added these two simple features.

[cmhprinting · Accepted solution]

If you don't know how to manipulate JavaScript, a simple hack that allows you to do the same thing is to move the files to separate directories (I would suggest naming one directory "front" and the other "back") and name both of the files exactly same name. Use Acrobat to extract the pages into separate files in two other subdirectories. These two separate subdirectories should contain identical file names when complete. Then, move the front pages into the back pages directory and tell the warning that pops up to keep both files. My windows 10 machine named the front pages that I moved into the back pages folder with a (2) after it which put them ahead of the back pages. Then select all the files and combine them with Acrobat.

[defaultweqeqmo0c6em]

I just flipped the stack--not the individual pages.  E.g., the back of page 1 endud up numbered 39.  Thus, in order to prepare for the above, I had to Print in Reverse Order. Doing so placed page 39 at the top of the file, and assigned that file number to what should have been page 2.  I had to used a modified PDF printer to keep from naming the pages that way, and to overwrite the flipped assigned page numbers.