Several pages on one sheet

How do you print multiple pages on one sheet?

Drop the PDF in, choose two, four or six, and press Save PDF. You get a new PDF where each page is a finished sheet with several of your pages arranged on it, in reading order, left to right and top to bottom. Print it normally — there are no special printer settings to get wrong.

Your printer driver can do something similar under “pages per sheet”, and it is worth knowing why you might not use it: you cannot see what it will look like until it comes out, the setting is forgotten by the next person who prints, and it cannot be emailed to a colleague. A file can.

How much paper does it actually save?

Exactly what the arithmetic says, which is more than people expect once a class is involved.

Setting	A 12-page pack	Across 30 children
One page each	12 sheets	360 sheets
Two per sheet	6 sheets	180 sheets — half a ream saved
Four per sheet	3 sheets	90 sheets
Six per sheet	2 sheets	60 sheets

Will the children still be able to read it?

At two per sheet, yes, for everything. At four, yes for reading but tight for writing. At six, only for something being read rather than filled in. Halving the page halves the text height, so 12-point becomes about 8-point at four per sheet and smaller still at six.

This is precisely why every sheet is drawn on the right before you save. If you cannot comfortably read it on screen, a child at the back of the room with the sheet flat on a desk certainly cannot.

Two, four or six — which should I use?

Two for anything children write on. Four for reading material, revision packs, and anything going home. Six only for a reference sheet nobody is expected to complete — a knowledge organiser, a word bank, a set of images.

One more consideration: at four and six there is no room left for working out. If the task needs space to answer in, either use two or accept that the answers are going in books.

Portrait or landscape?

Landscape for two, because two portrait pages sit side by side on a landscape sheet with almost nothing wasted. For four it makes little difference, as the grid is two by two either way. For six, landscape gives three across and two down, which suits portrait originals better than the other way round.

The preview settles it faster than the theory does — switch it and look.

What do teachers use it for?

Revision packs, knowledge organisers, reading comprehension texts that come as one page each, slide handouts, and anything sent home that would otherwise be a small book. It is also the fastest way to make a set of prompt cards: four per sheet, then cut.

Multi-up, or a booklet?

Both put more of your document on less paper. Multi-up keeps reading order and is handed over flat. A booklet is reordered so that folding the stack in half produces a little book, which means the sheets look wrong until they are folded. If nobody is going to fold and staple it, you want this one.