How to Open Multiple PDFs at Once

✔︎ Last updated on November 2nd, 2024

If you want to open multiple PDFs at once, this article is for you. In this blog post, you will learn two ways to open two or more PDFs at a time with a few nifty tricks.

Recently, I had to quickly review a bunch of PDFs just to pull out a few key bits of information and put it all together. But having to open each one individually was a serious pain.

I wanted a way to open them all at once, breeze through them one by one, and close each file with a simple keyboard shortcut once I’d reviewed it.

So, I looked into a few methods and found some two handy tricks for handling multiple PDFs with ease. If you’re looking for a more efficient way to work with lots of PDFs at once, these tips might be exactly what you need.

Let’s dive in.

Method 1: Open all PDFs in Browser

Quick Disclaimer:

Before we dive in, a heads-up: I don’t actually use Adobe Reader for reading or reviewing PDFs. Personally, I think if you’re mainly viewing or skimming through PDFs, Adobe Reader isn’t the ideal tool. Instead, I prefer using my default web browser (Microsoft Edge), which has turned out to be a smoother, faster option.

Your default might be Safari, Chrome, or even Edge, but in my opinion, Microsoft Edge has the best support for handling PDFs. That said, the methods in this post will work no matter which browser you choose to view PDFs.

Now let’s get started with this method.

1. Head to the folder where you’ve saved your PDF files.
2. Select all the PDFs you want to open at the same time
3. Now, right-click and choose “Open with” to pick your preferred browser. (You can also simple press Enter to open all of them in your default app.)

The PDFs will open in multiple tabs within the browser, ready for you to review. When you’re done with each one, just hit Ctrl + W (or Command + W on Mac) to quickly close the tab and move on to the next.

It’s a fast, efficient way to tackle a stack of PDFs without getting bogged down by individual windows. If you use the Arc Browser, you might want to disable ‘Little Arc’ for opening multiple PDFs at a time.

The beauty of this approach is that it works similarly on both Mac and Windows.

Open multiple PDFs in Preview.app

If you’re on a Mac, you’ve got another great tool for handling PDFs: Preview.app. This built-in application is more than capable of covering your basic PDF viewing and editing needs. With features like tabbed viewing, annotations, markup, and quick navigation, it’s designed for a smooth reading experience.

Plus, it goes beyond just viewing—Preview lets you extract specific pages from any PDF or rearrange pages in any order you want, just by dragging and dropping.

To open multiple PDFs in Preview, follow the same steps we discussed earlier. Go to the folder with your PDFs, select them all, then right-click and choose “Open with”.

This time, select Preview.app instead of your web browser. Each PDF will open in a new tab within Preview, giving you a quick, organized way to work through them.

Method 2: Use a terminal to open multiple PDFs selectively

If you want a bit more control over which PDFs to open and which to skip, using the Terminal can actually save you time. Don’t worry if you haven’t used the Terminal before; we’ll walk through it step by step.

Also read: How to open 4 tabs side-by-side on Mac

This method is a handy option when you have multiple PDFs and only need to open specific ones, especially if have hundreds of pdfs in your folder and want to avoid opening them at once.

Open multiple PDFs on a Mac

Here’s how to open selected PDFs using the Terminal on your Mac:

1. Open the Terminal:

• You’ll find the Terminal app in your “Applications” folder under “Utilities.”

• To make it easier, you can open Spotlight Search by pressing Command + Space, then type “Terminal” and press Enter when it appears.

2. Navigate to the Folder with Your PDFs:

• In the Terminal window, type the command cd (short for “change directory”) followed by a space.

• Then, drag and drop the folder containing your PDF files into the Terminal window. This will automatically fill in the correct file path.

• Press Enter to move into that folder.

3. Opening All PDFs Using Wildcards:

• To open all PDF files in the folder at once, type the following command and press Enter:

open *.pdf

Here, the * symbol acts as a “wildcard,” meaning it will match any file name ending with .pdf. So, open *.pdf tells the system to open every file with the .pdf extension in the current folder. All PDFs will open with your default app.

You can use this wildcard pattern in a number of ways.

Also read: 4 Awesome tricks to Change the Default Fonts in Excalidraw

Suppose, you only want to open PDFs that contain a specific word in their file name, you can use the wildcard symbol * before or after the word. Let’s say you only want to open PDF files with “Report” in the name. You’d type:

open *Report*.pdf

This command will open any PDF file with “Report” somewhere in the file name, whether it’s at the beginning, middle, or end of the name. For example, files like MonthlyReport.pdf, Report2023.pdf, and SalesReport_Final.pdf will all open.

Using the Terminal might feel like a new approach, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually pretty straightforward!

Opening more than one PDF on Windows

On Windows, the Command Prompt can handle similar tasks with the “start” command, giving you a quick way to open files based on keywords.

1. Open Command Prompt:

• Click on the Start menu, type “cmd” or “Command Prompt,” and hit Enter.

2. Go to the Folder with Your PDFs:

• In the Command Prompt window, type cd followed by a space.

• Open File Explorer, find the folder with your PDFs, and right-click on the path at the top. Choose “Copy as path,” then right-click in the Command Prompt and select “Paste.”

• Press Enter to switch to this folder.

3. Open All PDFs in the Folder:

• To open every PDF in the folder, type:

start *.pdf

This command will open all files with the .pdf extension, making it a quick solution when you want to pull up every PDF in the folder.

4. Open PDFs with Specific Words in Their Name:

• If you only want to open PDFs that include a specific word, add the word between asterisks. For example, to open only files that contain the word “Report” in their name, type:

start *Report.pdf*

This will open any PDF file with “Report” in its name, like MonthlyReport.pdf or AnnualReport2023.pdf.

Final thoughts

Managing multiple PDFs doesn’t have to be a hassle. Whether you’re using the drag-and-drop simplicity of a browser, the built-in power of Preview on Mac, or the command-line flexibility of the Terminal or Command Prompt, there’s a method here that fits your needs.