A client wants the whole file, or you need a paper copy of it. Merging the documents into one PDF is what makes either possible in a single action.
Introduction
Sending someone twenty separate attachments is nobody's idea of a good handoff, and printing twenty documents means opening twenty documents. Merging solves both: one file, in the order you chose, named the way your office names things.
Printing in particular has no other route — there's no print-all on a transaction, so merging first isn't a nicety, it's the mechanism. Once you have the merged document, you open it and use your browser's own print.
Merge does have edges, and they're all about what's in the batch rather than how big it is: a password-protected file, an old-format PDF, a JPEG someone uploaded. Knowing those up front turns a mysterious server error into a thirty-second fix.
When to Use This
- A client, lender, or attorney wants the whole file as one document.
- You need to print a transaction's paperwork and there's no print-all button.
- You're about to attach fifteen separate documents to one email.
- Merging a large batch throws an "Oops! Something went wrong" error.
- Listing photos are arriving as one document per image and cluttering the doc list.
1. Merge the Documents You Want to Send
Pick the documents in the order you want them to read, and merge them into a single new document. Leave the originals in place unless you have a reason not to — the merged copy is a deliverable, and the individual documents are still what the checklist and the audit trail refer to.
Combine several PDFs on a transaction into one clean document, named the way your office names things.
See Doc Merge
2. Print the Merged File
Open the merged document with Open Original Doc and print it from your browser. That's the whole of printing in Pipeline, and the reason merging comes first: without it you'd be opening and printing each document in turn.
3. Email It From the Transaction
Send the merged document from the transaction itself, so the send is recorded on the deal along with who received it and when.
Every transaction has a built-in message area — write a note for your own records, or send an email with docs attached, without leaving the deal.
Selecting every document when you compose an email is not the same as merging. That attaches many files to one message; it doesn't produce one combined PDF. If the recipient asked for a single document, merge first.
4. Work Around What Merge Can't Take
Four limits account for nearly every failed merge, and each has a straightforward answer:
- Password-protected PDFs won't merge. Remove the protection or reformat the file, then re-upload it.
- Old-format PDFs throw a server error. Open the document, print it to a new PDF, and upload that copy.
- Non-PDFs — a JPEG, a Word file — can't be merged at all, because only PDFs have the predictable structure merging depends on. Combine them outside Pipeline and upload the result.
- Very large batches are unreliable. Merge in smaller groups, or exclude the one problem document and try again.
If the batch fails and you can't tell which document is the culprit, halve it and merge each half. Two attempts usually name the offender faster than inspecting twenty files.
Photos are the case worth heading off before it starts: combining listing photos into a single PDF before uploading keeps the transaction's doc list to one line instead of forty, and makes them mergeable, previewable and printable like everything else.