Creating a single PDF from multiple pages is proving ...difficult...

[2400bps]

Hi everybody!  We're a small business and we're trying to do our monthly invoicing.  We have four separate (blank) invoices from the state agency we contract for, and we've gotten them all filled out and ready to save as PDF's.

We want to create a single PDF which includes all four completed pages.  When we combine them into a single PDF within Acrobat, it takes the information from the first page and imports the information into the other three pages, replacing all of the original information.  We even get a warning message telling us that this is going to happen, so we know this is happening deliberately.  Why?!

As a workaround to this very strange and unstoppable behavior, we've tried creating a "portfolio" with all four pages.  But there is apparently no way to then save these four pages as a single, regular PDF.  We can save them as a Portfolio PDF and they're fine, but we don't know if the agency has the ability to view Portfolio PDF's.  We've tried viewing these Portfolio PDF's with the standard Acrobat reader and that software refuses to even load.  Google Chrome also will not open it, recommending that we get Acrobat Reader CC. 

It was also suggested we try an online program called PDFMerge.  PDFMerge will merge all of our documents into a single PDF, which is great!  But when you try to view it on any other program, you discover that all of the fields on all pages except for the first page...are blank...

We just want regular, standard, single PDF files here, with multiple pages.  My research on this has led me to the conclusion that I'm not the only one frustrated with the lack of simplicity in doing something so...simple.

Why would the program tell us, "Well, since all of the fields on all of these pages are the same, we've decided to take all of the info from the first page, delete all your other pages, and then basically create copies of page one." When would that ever, EVER be a necessary or practical thing?  "I need to create a PDF with 50 pages, all the exact same page." 

Help me out here!

[try67 · Accepted solution]

It happens because your invoices contain form fields, and fields with the same name in a single file will always have the same value.

The solution is to flatten the files before merging them, converting the form fields into static content.

If you have Acrobat Pro then you can do it using a simple Action. Otherwise you'll need to do each file separately.

[2400bps]

We do have Acrobat Pro.  Thank you so much for your answer.  I'm eager to learn how to flatten these pages.

[try67]

Do you know how to use Actions to process multiple files in the same manner?