Double A5 on A4

[Tom Alsberg]

Hi there.

Following scenario is rather simple - but I can't seem to get it easy.

I have a document with page setup of A5 Landscape. That's half of A4
Portrait. How can have print it twice (two copies of the same
document) on A4 page (one on the top, one on the bottom)?

It would also be helpful if I could have some thin marker/(dotted)
line between them as a marker of where to cut.

Any ideas on how to achieve this easily (that will need to be done
often, and I encountered it in different variations already)? The
basic question is, how to print more than copy of the same page (for
every page in the document, but that's usually only one page) on a
sheet sized multiple of a page...

Thanks, help appreciated,
-- Tom

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you have Word 2000 or above, select "2 pages per sheet" in Page Setup
(not in the Print dialog). Change the paper size to A4 and choose Portrait
orientation, which will give you two landscape pages on a portrait sheet.
You should not have to reformat your existing pages at all.

The dotted line is a bit trickier, and I personally would forget about it,
depending on the calibration of the paper cutter, but here's something to
try. Go to Format | Borders and Shading and choose the Page Border tab.
Select a dotted or broken line style and apply it to just the bottom of the
page. In the Options, set the bottom margin (from edge of page) to 0 pts.
You'll get a dotted/broken line at the bottom of the top page, but you may
get one at the very edge of the bottom page as well. Unless you want to futz
around with multiple two-page (one-sheet) sections, with a border on the
first page of each one and not on the second, I don't see any way around
this. In my testing, however, I found that I got the line in the center but
not at the bottom, so this might work for you. I'd advise using a very thin
line and coloring it grey rather than black; even so, it's likely to show up
on one cut half or the other, so again, I don't think I'd bother with it.

 

[Tom Alsberg]

If you have Word 2000 or above, select "2 pages per sheet" in Page Setup
(not in the Print dialog). Change the paper size to A4 and choose Portrait
orientation, which will give you two landscape pages on a portrait sheet.
You should not have to reformat your existing pages at all.

That really does not seem to be what I want. That seems to just
span more pages on one sheet. But it won't print the same on both
parts of the sheet, which is what I want. Also this requires
changing the document (even if only its page setup), which I was
hoping to avoid.

What I'm trying to get, again:

Every A4 sheet will be exactly divided into two, and have the exact
same A5 page printed on both , so if it will be cut in the middle, I
will have the same as I would if I had printed the same page twice on
an A5 sheet. If the document has more than one page, then for every
page one sheet will be printed containing that page twice, e.g.:

1|1
2|2
3|3
....

The idea is to design the documents for A5, and without changing the
document, have it print two copies of each page on every A4 sheet.
The right point for this seems for me to be somewhere between Word
and the printer. I'm not sure that Word can do that, but maybe
somewhere in the Windows printing subsystem something could be done?

I'm asking here as I couldn't find any better place to ask in, and
there seem to be many Word/Windows experts here, especially in those
matters.

The dotted line is a bit trickier, and I personally would forget about it,
depending on the calibration of the paper cutter, but here's something to
try.

That's really not feasible here.

But given a more appropriate way to do it (somewhere in the Windows
printer drivers or printing preferences, perhaps some add-on or
change), that dotted line in the middle might be easier. If not
possible, not that big of a deal either - I can live without the
line. But I am really looking for an answer regarding the first
question.

Thanks, any further help appreciated,
-- Tom

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In that case you need the "2 pages per sheet" option in the Print dialog,
but that will require you to reformat the document at twice the size and
tell Word to print pages 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, etc. All things considered, I
think it would be preferable to use "2 pages per sheet" in Page Setup and
double the pages.

But here's another approach that will do what you want but again not as
simply as you want. Select A4 Portrait as your paper size and increase your
bottom margin by 148 mm (the depth of the A5 landscape sheet). Then print
the sheets, turn the paper around, and print them again.

Perhaps I have misunderstood your use of Portrait and Landscape, since your
diagram suggests that you're trying to print two portrait A5s side-by-side
on a landscape A4. In that case, increase the left margin by the width of
the A5 (or set that amount as the gutter margin), then print in two passes,
flipping the paper between them.

Actually, the very best alternative would be to set this up in Publisher,
which allows you to have a document size that is different from the paper
size and print multiple copies on a sheet.

 

[Tom Alsberg]

In that case you need the "2 pages per sheet" option in the Print dialog,
but that will require you to reformat the document at twice the size and
tell Word to print pages 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, etc.

That actually sounds like a ..relatively.. good option. Maybe I can
also use Word's "scale to A4" feature to avoid having to reformat the
document. Though I'm still more after something that will do it the
"right way", being aware that what I want is really to print multiple
copies of each page on one sheet (and then things like separator
lines, etc. would also be possible, probably).

All things considered, I think it would be preferable to use "2
pages per sheet" in Page Setup and double the pages.

The previous option seems better to me, though.

But here's another approach that will do what you want but again not as
simply as you want. Select A4 Portrait as your paper size and increase your
bottom margin by 148 mm (the depth of the A5 landscape sheet). Then print
the sheets, turn the paper around, and print them again.

That's not an option. Firstly, it's better to have everything in the
same orientation, and secondly, it just demands some more error-prone
manual work.

Perhaps I have misunderstood your use of Portrait and Landscape, since your
diagram suggests that you're trying to print two portrait A5s side-by-side
on a landscape A4. In that case, increase the left margin by the width of
the A5 (or set that amount as the gutter margin), then print in two passes,
flipping the paper between them.

Actually, you've understood well before - what I wanted right now is
two landscape A5s one above the other on a portrait A4. The
"diagram" was rotated 90 degrees...

Actually, the very best alternative would be to set this up in Publisher,
which allows you to have a document size that is different from the paper
size and print multiple copies on a sheet.

Well, perhaps I should try Publisher out, and see if that might be a
useful tool for me to get. I assume that a dotted line separating
the pages, etc. wouldn't be a problem for it.

BTW, such things used to be easy, back in the good days (not
completely over, but fading away) of PostScript as a standard for
printing and publishing, where I could just write some little program
or PostScript code to manipulate pages, among the rest, in many
creative ways.

Thanks,
-- Tom