Pages per sheet
Fit 2, 4 or more pages onto a single sheet.
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your file is never uploaded, and you can verify that in your browser's network tab. Verify it yourself: open your browser's network tab and watch. You will see one small request asking whether you have tasks left - a tool name and a hash, never the file.
What this does
This rebuilds the document with several original pages placed on each new sheet. It is the same idea as the pages-per-sheet setting in a print dialog, except the result is a file you can check, send and reuse rather than a setting that only applies to one print job.
Use it to save paper on long documents, to make lecture handouts where slides sit several to a page, to produce a contact-sheet overview of a design, or to print a draft compactly for review.
How it works
- Drop the PDF onto this page.
- Choose how many original pages go on each sheet.
- Pick the paper size and orientation, or leave both on automatic to follow the source.
- Adjust the margin and the gap between cells if you are printing to the edge of the paper.
- Press Lay out and download the result.
Pages are fitted, never filled. Each original page is scaled down until it sits inside its cell whole, and any leftover space is left as margin. Scaling to cover the cell instead would look tidier and would silently crop content off the edges, which is not a trade a tool should make for you.
Orientation defaults to automatic and follows the grid. Two-up and eight-up produce wide grids, so the sheet is turned landscape; four-up, nine-up and sixteen-up are square grids and stay in the source orientation. You can override this if your printer prefers otherwise.
The text gets smaller, and there is no way around that. Two pages per sheet is comfortable to read; four is fine for slides and diagrams; nine and sixteen are for overviews where you are looking for a page rather than reading it. Check a printed sample before committing a long document to paper.
The optional cell border helps when the source pages have white edges and the grid is otherwise hard to see. It is off by default because most documents do not need it.
What this tool cannot do
- Text is scaled down, so dense body text becomes hard to read above four pages per sheet.
- Links and form fields on the original pages do not survive the layout, because each page is drawn as artwork onto the new sheet.
Questions people ask
- Will the text still be readable?
- At two per sheet, comfortably. At four, fine for slides and diagrams and readable for body text at normal print sizes. At nine or sixteen the result is an overview rather than something to read - useful for finding a page, not for working through one. Print a sample sheet before committing a long document.
- Why did my portrait document come out landscape?
- Because two-up and eight-up use wide grids, and a landscape sheet wastes less space with them. Set the orientation explicitly to portrait if you would rather keep it upright.
- The edges are getting cut off when I print. What should I change?
- Increase the margin. Most printers cannot print to the very edge of the paper, and a margin of around 30 points is a safe starting point for a home printer.
- Is this the same as making a booklet?
- No. This places pages in reading order across sheets. A booklet needs pages imposed in folding order, which is a different arrangement entirely - use Make a booklet for that.