PDF merger for PC, free download: PDFsam Basic and the alternatives

This is the command winget runs for the PDFsam.PDFsam package. It comes from the PDFsam.PDFsam manifest in Microsoft’s winget repository:

winget install -e --id PDFsam.PDFsam --accept-source-agreements --accept-package-agreements

If Windows says winget is not recognized, follow the winget setup guide, or download pdfsam-basic-6.0.5-windows-x64.msi (93.8 MB) from the official GitHub release.

Which free PDF mergers can you download for a PC?

Five kinds of result come up for this search: PDFsam Basic, two freeware toolboxes (PDF24 Creator and PDFgear), Adobe Acrobat, and small merge apps in the Microsoft Store. Only PDFsam Basic is open source. The licence column below comes from each package’s own winget manifest, which we read on 29 September 2026.

Sources: the PDF24 Creator, PDFgear and Acrobat Reader winget manifests, pdf24.org, pdfgear.com and Adobe’s plan page.

How big is each download?

PDFsam Basic is the smallest of the three installers we measured, even though it bundles its own Java runtime. We read each file’s size from its download server on 29 September 2026, using the installer URL listed in the winget manifest.

The PDFgear download server did not report a file size, so it is left out rather than guessed.

When is PDFsam Basic the better pick?

Pick PDFsam Basic when the job is about whole pages and you want software you can check. It is open source under the GNU AGPL v3, so a school, office or company with an open source policy can use it without a licence review, and there is no trial, watermark or file limit.

It is also the better pick in these cases:

• Mac or Linux. PDF24 Creator has no desktop build outside Windows; PDFsam Basic has the same tools on all three systems.
• Page precision. Merge takes a page range for each file, such as 1-3,7, and can keep, drop or rebuild bookmarks and add a table of contents page.
• Private files. Every tool runs on your own disk. There is no online version to land on by mistake.
• Splitting as well as merging. Split by page numbers, by bookmarks or by file size, and extract, rotate or interleave pages, from the same app.

The PDFsam Basic vs PDF24 comparison and the Adobe Acrobat comparison go into each rival in more depth.

When is another PDF merger better?

Choose something else when the job changes what is on the page. PDFsam Basic never edits text, runs OCR, signs, redacts or shrinks scanned images; its compression setting only packs the file’s internal streams.

• PDF24 Creator suits a Windows PC that also needs OCR, image compression or a PDF printer, and you do not mind closed-source freeware.
• PDFgear suits someone who wants free text editing and signing in the same app on Windows or a Mac.
• Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro suits an office that already pays for Adobe and needs forms, e-signatures and redaction.
• A Microsoft Store merge app can be enough for a one-off job, but the five Store results we saw for this search came from five different small publishers. Check the publisher, the reviews and whether it adds a watermark before installing.

Is there an open source PDF editor for Windows?

Yes, but none of the free open source options edits PDFs as fully as Acrobat does. PDFsam Basic is the open source choice for page jobs, and LibreOffice Draw is the one for light text changes. Stirling PDF is often listed too, but its desktop build is not fully open source.

The Stirling PDF licence split is set out at the top of its LICENSE file, even though its winget manifest says MIT. LibreOffice’s licence is on the LibreOffice licence page. Most “open source PDF editor” lists mix these apps with freeware, so check the licence yourself before relying on one.

How do I combine PDF files offline on Windows?

Install PDFsam Basic with the command above, open Merge, drag your PDFs into the list and click Run. Windows itself has no merge command in File Explorer, and the Edge PDF viewer opens one file at a time.

1. Open PDFsam Basic and click Merge on the Home screen.
2. Drag the PDFs into the file list, or click Add.
3. Put them in order with Move Up and Move Down, and double-click a file’s Page ranges cell to merge only part of it.
4. Choose what happens to bookmarks and forms, or keep the defaults.
5. Set the Destination file, then click Run.

The merged file is written where you chose, the originals stay as they were, and nothing is uploaded. The merge guide explains each option, including the table of contents and blank-page settings.