Combine PDF pages onto one sheet
Print several PDF pages onto one sheet — 2-up, 4-up or more.
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Fewer sheets, and a different way of reading
Two reasons people do this, and they want different settings.
To save paper: 2-up on a landscape sheet halves the stack of a long document and stays comfortably readable, because each page is still about 70% of its original linear size. 4-up quarters it and is fine for reference material you will skim rather than read closely.
To see the whole thing at once: 9-up or 16-up turns a document into a contact sheet. The text is far too small to read and that is not the point — it is for checking the order of a scanned bundle, finding which page has the chart on it, or reviewing the flow of a deck. It is much faster than scrolling.
What happens to the page size
Pages are scaled to fit their slot and their proportions are kept, so nothing is stretched. Where a page's shape does not match its slot there is space left over, which is unavoidable — the alternative would be cropping content off.
The arrangement follows reading order: left to right, then top to bottom. So a 4-up sheet holds pages 1 and 2 on the top row and 3 and 4 below, which is what you want when the sheets are stacked and read in sequence.
The gap
The default of 8 points is a little over a tenth of an inch: enough to see where one page ends and the next begins without wasting space. Raise it if the sheets will be cut apart, since scissors and guillotines need somewhere to land.
Set it to zero for a genuine contact sheet where you want the maximum size out of each slot.
Before you print
Two settings in the print dialogue undo the work if they are wrong. Turn off any "fit to page" or "shrink oversized pages" option — the sheet is already the size it should be, and scaling it again adds a second margin inside the first. And check the paper orientation matches: a 2-up sheet is landscape, and a printer set to portrait will scale it down to fit and waste half the sheet.
What it is not for
This makes a new PDF whose pages contain several of the original pages. If what you want is your original document printed several-to-a-sheet just this once, your printer driver almost certainly offers that under "pages per sheet", and using it leaves your file alone.
Use this when you need the combined version as a file — to email, to archive, to hand to a print shop, or because the printer you will use does not offer the option.
Common questions
How many pages per sheet should I choose?
2-up to save paper while still reading normally. 4-up for reference material. 9-up or 16-up as a contact sheet, where the point is seeing the whole document rather than reading it.
Are the pages cropped?
No. Each page is scaled to fit its slot with its proportions kept, so where the shapes do not match there is leftover space rather than lost content.
What order are the pages placed in?
Reading order — left to right, then top to bottom. A 4-up sheet has pages 1 and 2 on the top row and 3 and 4 below.
Why did my print come out with huge margins?
The print dialogue scaled it. Turn off "fit to page" and "shrink oversized pages" — the sheet is already the right size, and scaling adds a second margin inside the first.
Should I just use my printer\u2019s pages-per-sheet setting?
If you only need it printed once, yes, and it leaves your file alone. Use this when you need the combined version as a file to send, archive or hand to a print shop.
What gap should I set?
8 points suits reading. Raise it if the sheets will be cut apart so a blade has somewhere to land, or set it to zero to get the most size out of each slot.