Re: printing A4 pages on A3 paper

[James Lowe]

Hello.

On 19/12/2010 12:03, Federico Bruni wrote:
> in a print shop I was told that they couldn't directly print my A4 .pdf
> to A3 paper - using Adobe Reader - because in the pdf "pages are linked
> two by two" (I guess they meant to say "twoside").
>
> So they had to first print on A4 sheets and then use them to print on A3
> paper.

I think you are referring to pagination.

Default A4 PDF files are

Page 1 2
Page 3 4

For example.

Here Page 1 is always the cover

what you need in your PDF output is

Page 4 1
Page 2 3

Like wise

On an 8 page PDF

Page 8 1
Page 2 7
Page 6 3
Page 4 5

This means you can 'print' your two pages on an A3 page so that when you 
print on the other side of the A3 page, the two A4 Pages are correct.

Also for this you ALWAYS need multiples of 4 pages

So for 6 Pages you need

Page Blank 1
Page 2 Blank
Page 6 3
Page 4 5

You can have 'fold outs' that can remove the blank pages but then you 
need 3 A4 Pages together and you have some options

i.e

Page 5 6 1
Page 2 3 4

or

Page 6 1 2
Page 3 4 5

and so on

If you are NOT just photocopying and using Litho Printers, then it gets 
more complicated because they will often want to print on larger sheets 
and so the pagination means that some pages are printed 'upside down' so 
that when they fold all the sheets together it works.

If you are curious (and have 5 minutes and a couple of pieces of A4) 
then take you A4 sheet, fold it into A5 (fold it along the long edge) 
now take that A5 and fold it once more along the long edge until you get 
to an A6 size.

Now have that a6 in front of you with the closed edge at the top and to 
the left hand side so that it looks like a little book.

Now simply number the pages 1, 2, 3, 4 .. 8 as if you were trying to 
read it (leave the closed edge on the top), now fold it all out and you 
can see how 8 Pages are 'printed' so that you only need one sheet of 
paper. The printer will then 'trim' the top off so you have two smaller 
sheet and staple (stitch) the two sheets together so you have your booklet.

If you want to see what 16 Pages looks like, repeat the above for 
another A4 sheet and before you start numbering, put the second folder 
A4 sheet inside the first and THEN number 1 - 16 and fold it all out.

You can see how the numbering works, what pagination the printer needs 
and which pages are printed upside down.

James

PS I used to work for an Offset Lithographic printers for many, many years.