Multiple Pages Per Sheet

1Drop the PDF inEvery page is shown so you can see which way it faces.

2Turn the pagesPress turn left or right, or use the control on a single page.

3Build and downloadAssembled here and saved from your own browser.

Cropping hides, it does not delete

The sheet of paper is left exactly as it was and only the area a reader displays changes, so the trimmed content is still in the file. That makes a mistake easy to undo, and makes cropping the wrong tool for hiding anything.

How to use this tool

Drop a PDF on the box at the top and pick how many pages you want on each sheet. Every finished sheet is drawn for you, with each page in its place, before anything is built.

The presets cover the usual choices. If you want something else, set the grid yourself: three across and two down puts six on a sheet in a shape that suits landscape pages.

Scaled to fit, never stretched

This is the part that separates a usable result from a mess, and it matters most on a document whose pages are not all the same size.

Each cell on the sheet is a fixed rectangle. A page going into it is scaled by a single factor, chosen so the tighter of the two dimensions just fits, and then centred in whatever room is left over. Because the same factor applies across and down, the proportions are exactly what they were.

The alternative, scaling width and height separately so the page fills the cell completely, is what produces the stretched look you sometimes see. A landscape page in a portrait cell here simply comes out smaller, with space above and below, which is the honest result.

Placed, not redrawn

Each page is embedded as a page object and drawn into position, rather than rendered to a picture and pasted down. Text stays selectable and searchable, line work stays vector, and photographs keep the compression they arrived with.

That is worth knowing if you are laying out a drawing set to check on paper. The result is smaller on the page but it is not a screenshot, so you can still search it and zoom into it without it falling apart.

A worked check you can repeat

Take a four page document and choose two across by two down. The result is a single sheet, with page one at the top left, page two at the top right, and pages three and four beneath them.

Now use five pages with the same setting. You get two sheets, the second holding one page in the top left corner and the rest of the sheet empty.

Switch the fill order to down and the second page moves beneath the first rather than beside it, which is what you want if the sheets are being cut into columns.

The layout was checked against an independent implementation before publishing: twenty seven hand written cases covering every grid from one up to sixteen, both fill orders, part filled last sheets, and settings whose margins leave no room. Then forty thousand generated layouts, of which thirty seven thousand mixed portrait, landscape and different paper sizes in the same document.

Six properties were checked on every one of them. Every page appears exactly once and in order, nothing crosses the margins, no page is enlarged beyond its cell, the proportions of every page are preserved exactly, each page is centred in its own cell, and no two cells overlap. Not one layout broke any of them.

Mistakes that catch people out

Expecting a booklet. This lays pages out in a grid. A booklet needs them reordered so they fall right when folded.

Sixteen up on A4. The arithmetic works but the result is too small to read. Move to A3 if you need that many.

Forgetting the paper you print on. Choosing A3 here and printing on A4 undoes the whole point.

Large margins with a fine grid. Between them they can leave no usable room, and the layout is refused rather than producing something unreadable.

Assuming a password protected file will open. It will not. Remove the protection first, in software that has the password.

Common questions

Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?

No. The file is opened by your browser, the new document is built here on the page, and the download comes from your machine. Nothing crosses the network.

Are the pages squashed to fit?

No. Each page is scaled by the same amount across and down, then centred in its cell, so nothing is distorted. A landscape page in a portrait cell simply ends up smaller.

Does the text stay searchable?

Yes. Pages are placed as page objects rather than turned into pictures, so text remains selectable and images keep their resolution.

What happens to the last sheet if it is not full?

It is left part filled. Padding it out with blanks would waste the paper you were trying to save.

Can I use it for a booklet?

Not directly. A booklet needs its pages reordered so they fall correctly once folded, which is a different job from laying them out in a grid.

Why is there a limit on how small the cells get?

If the margins and spacing leave no room, the layout is refused rather than producing a sheet with nothing readable on it.

Related PDF tools and reference

Reference: ISO 32000, the standard that defines how one page is embedded inside another.