Ubuntu
evince package

How can I print one page on several pages of paper?

Asked by Rosemary Hendley

I have a pdf of a railway schematic that is designed to print on one A3 of paper at landscape orientation. My printer can't print on paper bigger than A4. If I print at a scale to fit A4, I won't be able to read the station names because the text will be too small. I managed a beautiful print of the left hand side of the document onto A4 paper, and now I would like to print the right hand of the document - if that's possible?

I'm on i386, using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - the Lucid Lynx, Document Viewer 2.30.3 Using poppler/cairo (0.12.4) and my printer is HP PSC 2355. I don't know what Device URI means but it is usb://HP/PSC%202350%20series?serial=HU4BPFR021KJ if that helps. If you'd like to know the driver, just let me know how to find it.

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Ubuntu evince Edit question
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Solved by:
Marc Stewart
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Best Marc Stewart (marc.stewart) said : 		#1

I don't think that evince (aka Document Viewer) can do this yet, but there is a reasonably simple workaround.

Open the Ubuntu Software Centre (under Applications) and install PDF Shuffler.
Once installed, you'll find it under Applications > Office > PDF-Shuffler. Run it.
Import your A3 pdf twice.
Right-click the first, and choose Crop Page(s). Crop 50% from the right.
Now crop the second copy, removing 50% from the left.
You should now have your schematic split across two portrait A4 pages.
Export the new pdf and print that file instead.

Since you've already got one half printed, you should only need to print the other (presumably, page 2) now, but with this method you'll have the complete thing available should you want to reprint it.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

you may be able to tell the app to print page 2. You may benefit from using adobes reader

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Rosemary Hendley (catbells) said : 		#3

Marc: It's good to know that Document Viewer can't do this and it's not that I couldn't find it. Your instructions were really easy to follow.
Actionparsnip: I'm afraid I couldn't find out how to print in two pages.

Thank you both very much for taking the time to give me a few pointers. It's great to have the support of the community.

Just in case someone in the future reads this because they have a similar problem. Pdf Shuffle wouldn't export (it's a problem with a bit a Python that is no longer maintained so they won't fix it) and a couple of other packages wouldn't open it. I opened it Document Viewer at 100% and rotated by 90 degrees (this left half of it visible in the window), went to the menu Applications-Accessories-Screenshot and set it to take a screenshot of the current window after 7 seconds, went back into Document Viewer and went to fullscreen. After 7 seconds, I went back to Screenshot and saved. It was then possible to open the screenshot in another package and crop the image. It printed well. Same again with the other half of the pdf in a separate file.

It's a shame that Pdf Shuffle had a problem either with that particular file or my system. It would have been much easier.

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Rosemary Hendley (catbells) said : 		#4

Thanks Marc Stewart, that solved my question.

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tally3tally (tally3tally) said : 		#5

thanks seems the answer to my exact problem ...appreciated lots