Put several PDF pages on one sheet
Turn a long document into a handout, a proof or a revision sheet by tiling two, four, six or nine pages onto each sheet of paper. Pages are scaled to fit and never cropped, and they stay vector — so the text is still selectable and prints sharply at whatever size it ends up.
How to use the N-up PDF
- Drop the PDF you want to tile.
- Choose how many pages go on each sheet and what paper you are printing on.
- Leave orientation on Automatic, or force portrait or landscape.
- Click Create N-up PDF and print the result at 100% — not "fit to page".
Why do it in the file rather than the print dialogue
Most print drivers offer a "pages per sheet" option, but it lives in a different place in every driver, it is forgotten between jobs, it cannot be checked before you commit paper to it, and it cannot be e-mailed to a colleague or sent to a print shop. Building the imposition into the PDF means what you see is exactly what comes out, anywhere, on anyone's printer.
How the layout is worked out
On Automatic, 2-up uses a landscape sheet with two portrait pages side by side — the arrangement people actually mean by "two up". Four, six and nine up use a portrait sheet in a 2 × 2, 2 × 3 or 3 × 3 grid. Each source page is scaled by the same factor horizontally and vertically to fit its cell, so nothing is stretched and nothing is cropped; any spare room is shared evenly around it. Pages with a rotation flag are rotated into their visual orientation first, so a landscape page in a portrait document still lands the right way up.
Sizes, and what stays readable
| Layout | Each page becomes | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 2 up on A4 landscape | about 70% of A4 | Comfortable for anyone |
| 4 up on A4 | about 50% (roughly A6) | Fine for 11 pt body text |
| 6 up on A4 | about 40% | Slides and diagrams only |
| 9 up on A4 | about 33% | Thumbnails — an overview, not for reading |
If the source is a slide deck, 4-up and 6-up are the traditional handout formats. For dense reports, stop at 2-up. A3 gives you a full size jump: 4-up on A3 is the same physical size per page as 2-up on A4.
Printing it
Print at 100% or "actual size". Choosing "fit to page" scales the whole sheet down again to fit inside the printer's unprintable margin, shrinking your already small pages by another few per cent. The default 20 pt sheet margin is about 7 mm, which sits comfortably inside the hardware margin of ordinary inkjet and laser printers. The thin border round each page makes a handout easier to read and gives you a cutting line when the sheets will be guillotined.
Saving paper
Combining 2-up with double-sided printing puts four pages on one sheet of paper — a 60-page report becomes 15 sheets.
Frequently asked questions
Will the text still be selectable?
Yes. Pages are embedded as vector content, not rendered to images, so text stays selectable and prints at full resolution.
Which layout should I use for a slide handout?
4-up or 6-up on A4 portrait. Slides carry little text, so they stay readable much further down than a dense report would.
What happens to landscape pages inside a portrait document?
Each page is placed in its visual orientation and scaled to fit its cell, so mixed documents tile correctly.
Should I print it fit-to-page?
No — print at 100% or actual size. Fit-to-page shrinks the sheet a second time and wastes the margin you already set.
Privacy
This tool runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly and the Canvas/File APIs. Your files are never uploaded to ToolFlint or any third party; you can verify this in your browser's network tab or by switching to airplane mode after the page loads. Read how we process files.
Last updated 2026-09-23.