How To Create A Multi Page PDF with Inkscape

Create a multi-page PDF with Inkscape

For the longest time, making multi-page PDFs with Inkscape was a process that requires several workarounds and third-party applications. But thanks to an update in version 1.2 (and beyond,) it can now all be done within the software. In this tutorial I’ll be showing you how.

Last year, Inkscape released version 1.2, which came with a new tool– the Page Tool. This tool allows you to create multiple pages on your canvas, order them by number, and then save them as a multi-page PDF. Let’s have a look at how it works.

Create Multi-Page PDFs With Inkscape

To create a multi-page PDF with Inkscape, grab the Page Tool and click the “Create New Page” button in the toolbar to add a new page. Repeat this process for however many pages you need. Once finished, save your document as a PDF file.

The following video will walk you through the entire process of using the Page Tool to create multi-page documents in Inkscape:

Continue on for the written instruction.

Table of Contents

Step 1: Access the Page Tool and use it to add new pages to your document

To get us started, open a new document. You will notice that you have a single white page within your document. The gray space around the page represents the canvas area outside of your pages and will not be included in the saved PDF.

Page tool location
The Page Tool location is highlighted in red above. Click the image if you need to enlarge it.

Access the Page Tool in the lower left-hand corner of the toolbar. It is represented by an icon that depicts a couple of pages.

With the Page Tool selected, you will see an option to add a new page to your document. Click that button to add a new page to your document:

Add new page
The new page document is highlighted in red above.

If you need to change the size of the page, you can do so manually by clicking and dragging the nodes at the corners of the pages, or you can choose from one of the templates in the dropdown menu in the tool settings menu.

Step 2: Assign the order of the pages as needed

Whenever you add new pages to a document in Inkscape, the original page will serve as page 1 of the PDF document you save as. Every additional page will be added in numerical order. So, if you add a new page, it will be page 2. Adding another page in addition will be page 3, and so on.

If you need to change the page order of your document, simply click on one of the pages with the Page Tool enabled and use the menu interface in the tool settings bar to change its order:

Change page order
Use the left and right arrow icons to move the order of the selected page back and forward.

Step 3: Save the document as a PDF file

Once you are ready to save your multi-page PDF, all you have to do is navigate to:

File > Save As

When prompted, choose PDF from the file type menu and click save. You will then be asked to choose the settings for your PDF document. Leave the defaults as they are (unless you need different settings for whatever reason) and click save.

Locate your PDF document and open it. It should be multi-paged according to the page order in Inkscape.

In Conclusion

Inkscape has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few years, and the new Page Tool is just one of many welcomed additions. Thanks to this new feature, creating multi-page documents in Inkscape has never been easier!

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Nick Saporito

Hi, I'm Nick— a Philadelphia-based graphic designer with over 10 years of experience. Each year millions of users learn how to use design software to express their creativity using my tutorials here and on YouTube.

17 thoughts on “How To Create A Multi Page PDF with Inkscape

  1. I created a tool to automatically do the export & merge: ink2pdf
    See https://github.com/spook/ink2pdf .
    By adding prefixes into your layer names you can do all sorts of custom control as well.
    Hope this helps!

  2. Hi Nick,
    Thanks, for tip on this program! I can share link on a small tool that I have done to generate booklet pdfs for printing.
    By that I mean those trendy booklets without any croping. Big, massive, chunk of paper 😀

    Python, CLI
    https://github.com/jansindl3r/booklet

  3. I watched most of your tutorials online and you make develop interest in GIMP and Inkscape. These two apps are quite easy to learn and switch to. They are just flexible!
    I’m having a feeling that Illustrator, CorelDraw will have a big run when these two free apps mature into standard.
    Thank you Nick, you’re great bro.

  4. On Linux distros, pdfunite is installed by default.

    In the terminal:
    pdfunite file_1.pdf file_2.pdf output.pdf

    Note: You can also use wildcards.
    pdfunite *.pdf output.pdf

  5. Hi Nick,

    thanks for being awesome as always!!!

    I have an online tool to suggest too: https://smallpdf.com/ and there is a Chrome extension also. I love this tool! Among others, there is also the Merge option 🙂

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