KDE - Printing multiple pdf pages into one sheet

Using KDE4.

Received a pdf of 100+ pages and needed to print them as hardcopy.

Been googling for a long while but unable to find how to print out as handouts e.g. 3 pages into 1 page.

Any suggestions appreciated.

It’s not really clear to me what you have and what you want to do with it.

Do you have 100 page pdf file that you want to reduce the size of by printing 3 pages per sheet?

Do you have 100 pdf files that you want to combine into a number of 3 page files?

There must be a way, just need to understand the problem.

From okular (and any other kde app) you can choose, in the print dialog>options>pages, to print one, two, four, six, nine or sixteen document pages per sheet. There’s no option for 3 pages, as it would waste paper space.

To re-phrase the problem:

  1. One big pdf file with 100+ pages (slides)
  2. Wanted to print them to hardcopy.
  3. Intend to print (squeeze) several pages into one page to save paper
    e.g. 4 per page to squeeze a 100 page pdf into 25 pages (hardcopy).

Hi brunomcl, thanks for the suggestion.

however, the pages tab in openSUSE 12.1 actually does not work.
will still get a 1 per page printout even if you select four or six.

the pages tab in openSUSE 12.2is removed (propably because the devs are unable to get it to work ?)

opensuse 12.1/kde4.8.1
okular print multi-pages per sheet
I tried printing 4 pages in one sheet and it worked.
Just specify the pages say 1-4

If you still have problems KPDF (from kdegraphics3) will print multiple pages on one page.

From your snapshot I see you are printing to PDF. Here in KDE 4.8 it only works if I print to an actual printer. It won’t work if I print to PDF file, to PDF using CUPS (which is probably the same) or to PS.

Probably the KDE devs don’t think it necessary, since you can show a PDF in okular two (opposite pages view) or more (overall/general view) pages at a time easily.

Printing multiple pages to PDF works in KDE3 (KPDF) but not in Okular - one of those they have not yet got round to in KDE4.

To add

Evince also works on multiple pages to PDF

Hi all, thanks for all the advise,

first things first, need to clarify that I should have be more specific that I do not have a printer and will need to export the final (smaller) pdf document and mail to my brother living nearby, for printing.

conram,
you are absolutely correct that okular print multi-pages per sheet. unfortunately, I do not have a printer and needs to output to a pdf file instead.

have actually tried evince and xournal, however the rendering of the pdf is not as good as in okular (screenshot sample here)

brunomcl
thanks for the insight that printing to a actual printer and printing to a pdf is treated differently.

moving forward, anyone having the same situation as me (no printer and needs someone to help to print) will find it more difficult to work in openSUSE if such options are removed. :frowning:

Any idea if this is “design” or “bug”.

Unable to edit the post above, this is a followup :

After installing CUPS-PDF , all the options are back (screenshot sample here)

Believe that anyone with a printer, after installing, will then have the options available.

But, printing through CUPS-PDF still gives me the same problem of one per page instead of selected (4 per page). >:(

This is embrassing, I am getting good at contradicting myself >:)

Anyway, here’s the short version of my confusing journey

after a reboot, the okular’s options of “printing multiples pages into one” is gone, again.
out of desparation, I added a printer (driver downloaded from internet) without actually having a physical printer.
magically, okular’s options of 'printing multiples pages into one" appears again , yay!

Better yet, CUPS-PDF actually prints out multiple pages into one, YAY!!
only weird thing cups-pdf does not allows me to change the output location, which is defaulted in /var/spool/cups-pdf/username/,
which is better than no ouput.

On 2012-04-01 08:36, michalng wrote:
> Better yet, CUPS-PDF actually prints out multiple pages into one,
> YAY!!
> only weird thing cups-pdf does not allows me to change the output
> location, which is defaulted in /var/spool/cups-pdf/username/,
> which is better than no ouput.

See you got it.

There is another method: you can print any file from any program to
postcript, and manipulate this file with several command line programs,
classic in Linux.

Some of them:

psbook rearranges pages into signatures
psselect selects pages and page ranges <========
pstops performs general page rearrangement and selection
psnup put multiple pages per physical sheet of paper <====
psresize alter document paper size
epsffit fits an EPSF file to a given bounding box

poster - Scale and tile a postscript image to print on multiple pages
column - columnate lists

enscript ascii a ps
hp2xx HP plotter converter.

What you require is done with “psnup”. Then you can transport that
postscript file to the physical printer, if using Linux, because PS is the
native printer language here. Or, if you prefer, you can convert that file
to PDF with “ps2pdf”.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)