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How to print PDFs four-to-a-sheet

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This topic describes the procedure for printing a PDF (designed for a small page sizetypically A6) onto normal A4 paper stock, with 4 pages of the PDF per printed A4 sheet. This saves printing resources (and costs), presents the PDF pages in a normal 1:1 aspect (as they would appear on A6 stock), and allows for a double page spread print review (lets you see what each page spread will look like when printed double sided).

Unfortunately, achieving this type of print layout isn't as intuitive as you might (like to) expect, so the following procedure was written as a memory aid for the steps involved. All that is required is a printer which can print multiple pages per sheet. Look at your printer properties in Windows to check for yourself.

See:

To prepare the printer for multiple pages per sheet:

  1. Take the PDF and open it in Adobe Acrobat or Reader (version 5or later).
  2. Click the Print button.

    3. The print dialog will display:

  3. In the 'Printer' section, click the Properties button.

    4. The Printer Properties dialog will display:

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  4. If not already displayed, select the 'Finishing' tab, and in the 'Document Options' section, use the arrow box to alter the value of Pages per Sheet to "4".
  5. Check the Print Page Borders box.
  6. In the Page Order list, select "Right, then Down".

    7. Tip Tip

    To save these printer settings for future use, in the 'Print Task Quick Sets' section, enter a name for the four-to-a-sheet options like "4 to a page", and click Save. Rather than set these options individually next time you want to print multiple pages to a sheet, just select this "quick set" to load these predefined print options.

  7. Click OK.

Once the printer is ready to print multiple pages per sheet, you can use Adobe Acrobat or Reader to print the PDF for review. See Jump down to subject How to print multiple pages per sheet.

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To print multiple pages per sheet:

This procedure expects that you have already prepared the printer to print multiple pages per sheet.
If not, see xyz How to prepare the printer for multiple pages per sheet.

  1. On the Print dialog, and in the 'Print Range' section, select the page range you want to print.

    2. xyz

    Note Note

    If the first page in the document is designed to be an odd-numbered page in a two-page spread (that is, the right side page)when printing four to an A4 sheetthe lack of an initial even-numbered preceding page (page 0 before page 1) causes the spread to be one page out.

    This results in odd-numbered (right side) pages being printed on the left side of the four-to-a-sheet, and even-numbered (left side) pages being printed on the right side of the four-to-a-sheet. Not good. To overcome this behaviour, omit the first page from the print. In the example above, select the 'Print Range' Pages from "2" to whatever you want.

    This results in pages on their proper sides in the resultant four-to-a-page spread. But with page one missing. Print it out on full size A4 and use it as a cover sheet. See further note below for details.

  2. In the 'Page Handling' section, for Page Scaling select "Fit to paper".

    3. This prevents the pages from being scaled to a proportionate percentage of the apparent page size. That is, they each print to a full quarter of an A4 sheet, which coincidentally is very close to their original A6 paper size.

  3. Click OK.

Note Note

If you didn't include the first page in the print when printing four-to-a-sheet, you can easily print it on a single sheet at full A4 size and use it as a cover sheet for your four-to-a-sheet printout. See Jump down to subject how to scale and print an odd sized PDF page to full A4 paper size.

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To scale and print an odd sized PDF page to full A4 paper size:

Adobe Acrobat or Reader can scale and size a PDF page to any size you desire (within practical limits of the viewer and printer). This functionality is particularly useful when you have an odd paper size document (like A6) which you wish to print on a more standard size paper supported by your printer (like A4).

  1. If not already open, take the PDF and open it in Adobe Acrobat or Reader (version 5or later).
  2. Click the Print button.

    3. The print dialog will display.

  3. In the 'Printer' section, click the Properties button.

    4. The Printer Properties dialog will display.

  4. On the 'Finishing' tab, and in the 'Document Options' section, check that the value of Pages per Sheet is set to "1".

    Tip Tip

    The 'Print Task Quick Sets' section "Default Print Settings" will likely be set to one page per sheet. If not already selected, you can use this to quickly remove all multiple pages per sheet settings remembered from the previous print job.

  5. Click OK.
  6. On the Print dialog in the 'Print Range' section, select the page range you want to print.
  7. In the 'Page Handling' section, for Page Scaling select "Fit to paper".

    8. This is the important setting which scales the PDF page to the printer paper size.

  8. Click OK.

See Also

xyz Lotech Solutions' Tips, Tricks, and Procedures | Jump back to introductionHow to create PDFs from HTML topics 

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