Merge PDF Files with iLovePDF.com

 

Distance learning and hybrid learning have changed the way we do some of the less loved parts of teaching such as submitting weekly attendance and intervention reports and much more. On the teaching side of it, pandemic teaching has compelled us to use PDF materials more than ever before. There are many occasions where we have two separate PDF files that we wish were together. To merge them, go to ilovepdf.com and accomplish this for free. Take a look at how to get started.

Start by going to ilovepdf.com. Click Merge PDF.

On the next page, you have two options. If you click Select PDF files, it will open your computer's files and you can upload. The other option is to click the Google Drive button and add PDF files from you Drive.

Once you've uploaded your PDF files from either your computer or Drive, they will appear as thumbnails. These thumbnails can be arranged in any order by dragging and dropping. Each week, when I submit my weekly attendance reports along with intervention reports, I have to include a cover sheet. I always arrange it to where my cover sheet is first.

If you need to add more PDF files, on the right side, click the red plus button to add more files. A dropdown menu will appear giving you the option to add from your computer or Drive. If you have all the PDF files you want in the correct order, on the bottom right, click Merge PDF.

When they have merged, click the Download merged PDF button to download to your computer or click the Google Drive button to save it in Drive.

This free online tool is great when you find PDF versions of various resources, text or primary sources that you want to combine for easy student access. In addition to merging PDFs, ilovepdf.com offers many other tools. I encourage you to check them out. How will you use ilovepdf.com? 

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Chat at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. 

My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is now available on Amazon. Click here to purchase. It is published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.

Wanna Copy and Paste from a PDF? Kami to the Rescue!

 

To quote Peter Griffin, "You know what really grinds my gears?", not being able to copy and paste from a PDF. Many times, we teachers are given resources in PDF form. When we go to adapt it for how we plan to teach, trying to copy and paste content from PDFs can be problematic. The same is true for students. 

This school year, in teaching history, I placed a greater emphasis on having students cite quotes and textual evidence from primary sources. More often than not, the primary sources were sent to students as a PDF file. Students complained how problematic it was to tab switch or try to memorize text when quoting a source. 

One way to alleviate this annoying pain point, for both teachers and students, is to use OCR technology? OCR stands for optical character recognition. This gives you the ability to pull text from an image and make it editable. Most PDF files are scanned images of text. OCR can make the text of a scanned PDF editable. For teachers and students who want to copy and paste snippets of text from a PDF, they can use the OCR function built in to Kami. This function is available in the free version of Kami as well as paid.

Start by opening a PDF either in Google Drive or Google Classroom. Click the Open with button. In the drop down menu that appears, click Annotate with Kami.

When the PDF opens up in Kami, in the top right corner, click the "hamburger" or three lines menu. In the drop down that appears, click OCR For Scanned PDFs. 

Give it a minute to process. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a small pop up saying Running OCR. The page will reload when it's finished running.

When the page reloads, using the Kami Select tool (found on the top of the left side toolbar), select a snippet of text just as you would on a web page or Google Doc. Right click in the selected area and click Copy. You can then paste the snippet of text anywhere you need to use it. 

Teachers! The next time you get some great PDF resources from a PD or workshop and want to use that information in planning a lesson, be sure to rock the OCR function in Kami. Show your students this skill to help them identify textual evidence as part of a lesson and or writing process. How will you use the Kami OCR function?

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Chat at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is now available on Amazon. Click here to purchase. It is published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.

Extract Pages on a PDF with Print in Google Chrome

Sometimes you come across a PDF file that has much more than what you need. All you need is just a few pages. You don't want to overwhelm students with superfluous content. Extracting selected pages from a PDF,  in this situation, is the way to go.

Not too long ago, I published a blog post about using the ILovePDF website to extract selected pages from a PDF. A few days after posting, I received some feedback about another, easier way to accomplish the same task. It was brought to my attention, by a reader of my blog, that you can do the same thing using the Print function within Google Chrome.  I am extremely grateful for this reader's feedback as they opened my eyes to a tool I know how to use, but never thought to use it in this manner. This here is the beauty of having a PLN. Take a look at the screenshots below to see how to use Google Chrome Print to extract pages of a PDF.

Step 1: Open a PDF file in Google Drive. I recommend right clicking on the file and selecting Preview. In the Preview, at the bottom, you can see how many pages the file contains.

Step 2: In the Preview, in the top right corner, click the Print icon.

Step 3: After clicking the icon in Step 2, it will open the file in another tab. In the new tab, click the Print icon, again, in the top right corner.

Step 4: Clicking the icon in Step 3 will open a print panel on the right side. In the panel, click the box titled Pages.

Step 5: Change it from All to Custom.

Step 6: When you change to Custom, below, you can enter the page range or set of individual pages you want to extract from the PDF.

Step 7: Click Save after entering your pages or page range.

Step 8: After clicking Save in Step 7, a dialogue box will appear on your computer. This is where you name the file and location to be saved. What you see below is what it looks like on a Mac. It will look a little different on a PC or Chromebook. Regardless of your device and what it looks like, it will function the same way. Simply title it and select Save location.

Once saved to your computer, you can open it on your computer and or upload to Google Drive.

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. If you would like to unsubscribe from this blog, go to bit.ly/tcjinbox.

 

Extract Pages from a PDF with iLovePDF

 

We have all come across a PDF file that had the information and content that could help make a great lesson. But sometimes, the file has more than what you want. Sometimes, you just want a piece of that PDF and not the entire file. ilovepdf.com is the tool for you when in this situation arises. This website will allow you to extract select pages from a PDF file and merge those pages into a PDF file of its own for your purposes. 

Take a look at the steps and screenshots below to get started using ilovepdf.com.

Step 1: Go to ilovepdf.com. Click the Select PDF file button to choose a PDF from your computer or click the Google Drive button to choose a PDF file from your Drive.

Step 2: If you chose Google Drive, you will need to select your Google account as well as do steps 3-4. If you chose to pull a file from your computer, your computer's files manager would open up and you would select the file there and skip to step 5.

Step 3: Allow permission to access your Google Drive.

Step 4: Search your Google Drive for the PDF file you want and select it.

Step 5: Once a file is chosen and uploaded to ilovepdf.com, click the Extract pages button.

Step 6: Choose your pages by unchecking the pages you don't want or typing in the pages you do want. 

Step 7: Once the pages have been chosen, check the box to merge extracted pages in one PDF file and click the Split PDF button a the bottom.

Step 8: When the "PDF have been split!" notification appears, HOVER your mouse over the big button that says "Download split PDF" and it will download to your computer. You may also click the Google Drive button to add it to your Google Drive if you choose. 

Once the file is in your Google Drive or on your computer, you will be able to easily distribute the file to students via Google Classroom or LMS of your choice. The video below demonstrates each step in real time. 

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. If you would like to unsubscribe from this blog, go to bit.ly/tcjinbox.

How To Use the Print Friendly & PDF Chrome Extension

 

There are some great articles online that can be down right littered with ads. The amount of ads can often be a deal breaker when deciding whether or not to use the article for assignments with students. Next time you find a great article littered with ads, use the Print Friendly & PDF Chrome Extension to generate an ad-free PDF file of the article that is much more palatable for students. 

The steps below show you how to get started installing the extension and how to use it.

Step 1: Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Print Friendly PDF.

Step 2: Click Add to Chrome. (This screenshot shows Remove from Chrome since I have already added it. The Add to Chrome button is in the same spot if you haven't added it yet. If your district's domain does not allow you to add Chrome extensions, contact whoever is in charge of the domain and ask them to push the extension to teacher browsers or allow this one to be installed.)

Step 3: When the extension has been installed, it will appear in your Chrome browser. When you find the article you want, click the extension button. 

Step 4: After you click the extension button, a window will pop up and process the article like you see below. You will see most, if not all, ads removed. 

Step 5: As you scroll down, hover your mouse over areas you'd like to eliminate from the article and click the trash can. This is useful if there are ads that didn't get taken out or if there is text you believe is extra or irrelevant.

Step 6: When you are ready, click the PDF button at the top right of the window. Then click Download Your PDF to download the file to your computer.

When you download it to your computer, you should then upload it into Google Drive. From there, it can be assigned or attached in Google Classroom. The video below shows you each step in real time.

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. If you would like to unsubscribe from this blog, go to bit.ly/tcjinbox.