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Combine PDF Documents for Streamlined E-Signature

Updated

Your CRM enables you to combine multiple PDF documents into a single E-Sign document.

Combining multiple documents into one makes the E-Sign process faster and simpler for you and your merchants.

Instead of receiving multiple emails and e-signature links, the signer will receive only one notification email and can sign all of the documents in a single E-Sign session. 

There are two ways to combine documents:

1) pick the documents on-the-fly in the lead

2) build document bundles in the Import PDFs page

 

Method 1: Pick when sending

To create a combined E-sign document, open the E-Sign tab on your lead and click the Select button next to "Send Multiple E-Sign Documents":

 

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A popup window now appears where you can select the documents you’d like to combine:

 

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Once you select your documents, you can also change the order of their appearance in the E-Sign document by dragging the documents up or down:

 

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The first document in the list serves as the primary document for the E-Sign experience, and it's marked with a yellow star:

 

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The E-Sign email template, signed template, signed notification, attachment settings, and other E-Sign settings are pulled only from the primary document, and not any of the other documents that you selected.

 

Once you’ve selected your documents and determined the proper order, it’s time to generate the link by clicking the Generate & Preview Email button:

 

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In the next window, add additional signers (optional) and click the Preview Email button:

 

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An new email with instructions for signing is now launched, and you can send it directly to your contact. 

The rest of the process happens in the same way as when generating a single-document e-sign. 

Once the combined document is e-signed, it will be saved on the E-Sign tab. 

Additionally, the lead Attachments tab will show the combined documentand individual PDF files that the combined document was comprised of. 

 

For example, let's say that you created a combined E-Sign  from two documents titled "MPA" and "Equipment Lease". 

Once the combined document is signed, the Attachments tab will show the following documents: 

  1. Signed combined E-Sign 
  2. Signed individual PDF documents
  3. Unsigned individual PDF documents

Here is a screenshot showing the documents from our example:

 

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Method 2: Pre-build bundles

Frequently used combinations of e-signature documents can be grouped into E-signature bundles, saving you from selecting each document individually every time.

These bundles appear at the top of the e-sign selection dropdown, listed before the individual apps, and are marked with a ‘bundle’ tag for easy identification.

 

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E-signature bundles also support the option to generate an individual audit trail for each document within the bundle.

For more information on setting up E-Signature bundles see our guide on Creating an E-Signature Bundle. 

 

Understanding the Duplicate Field Problem in E-Sign Bundles

When multiple PDF forms are combined into a single e-sign envelope, each form is automatically populated with lead data based on the field mapping configured for that form.

Once the signer completes and submits the e-sign bundle, the entered data is written back to the mapped lead fields in the CRM — however, only from the first PDF form in the bundle.

The remaining forms will retain the field data in the completed PDF document, but the information from those forms will not be written back to the lead.

 

The Problem: Duplicate Field Names Across Forms

When multiple PDF forms are merged into a single envelope, issues may occur if the forms contain form fields with the same names.

For example, if three different PDF forms each contain a field named ContactName, Adobe Acrobat treats all three fields as a single, shared field once they’re merged into one envelope.

This can cause two key problems:

  1. Unintended Data Synchronization — If the signer edits the ContactName field in one of the forms, all other ContactName fields in the remaining forms and pages automatically update to the same value, without the signer realizing it.
  2. Same Field Name, Different Meaning — In some configurations, identical field names may be intentionally mapped to different lead fields in the CRM. For example:
    • ContactName on PDF Form 1 mapped to: Business Contact
    • ContactName on PDF Form 2 mapped to: Owner Name
    • ContactName on PDF Form 3 mapped to: Control Officer

    In this case, Acrobat’s merging logic will import only the value of the ContactName field from PDF Form 1 and save that same value in all three lead fields (Business Contact, Owner Name, and Control Officer), which is incorrect. The signed PDF document, however, will still display the correct individual values within each form.

The Solution: Use Unique Field Names

To prevent these issues, ensure that each PDF form uses unique field names when setting them up for e-signature. A simple and effective approach is to prefix each field name with the ID of the related application or form, such as:

App123_ContactName
App123_Address
App123_Email

This ensures that when the PDFs are merged, all field names remain distinct, preventing unintended data sharing or import errors.

User Warning

When a user generates an e-sign bundle using multiple PDF forms and the system detects duplicate fields across those forms, a warning message is displayed, as shown in the example below:

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If you wish, you may ignore the message by clicking Okay, and the system will generate the e-sign bundle normally. However, bear in mind that the information returned from the e-sign document to the lead page may be imported incorrectly due to the issues described above.

Note that the duplicate fields issue does not affect e-sign bundles that are sent to the merchant in read-only mode, since such applications cannot be modified by the merchant.