PDF power tools
Print several pages per sheet
Fit several pages onto each sheet, impose a foldable booklet, or enlarge one page across several sheets. Your document is processed locally and is never uploaded to Novus PDF Studio.
Fit several pages onto each sheet, impose a foldable booklet, or enlarge one page across several sheets.
Drop PDF here
Files stay in this browser session. Maximum 200 MB each.
Loads a sample: 6 pages: a report with a cover and numbered sections.
Samples contain invented data only and are read from this site, not uploaded.
Your document preview will appear here.
Choose a PDF to begin.
About this tool
Two very different jobs share one tool here, because they are the same mechanism pointed at different problems. N-up shrinks pages onto a grid and keeps them in reading order: the ordinary way to turn forty pages into ten sheets. Booklet imposition reorders them so that a stack of sheets, folded down the middle and nested, reads from front to back.
That second one is the reason this tool exists at all. Printing two pages a side in order gives you a folded booklet that reads 1, 4, 2, 3, which is the single most common way a home-made booklet comes out wrong. The imposition is arithmetic, not judgement, so a tool should do it.
Poster runs the whole idea backwards: one page enlarged across several sheets, which you trim and tape into something bigger than your printer can produce. You choose how many sheets wide the finished thing is, and the number of rows follows from the shape of the page itself, because a poster that let you set both would have to stretch the artwork to fill the grid you asked for.
How to n-up step by step
- 1
Open your PDF
Drop the file onto the drop zone. Nothing leaves the tab.
- 2
Choose the layout
Pages per sheet for ordinary N-up, Foldable booklet if the sheets are going to be folded and nested, or Poster to enlarge one page across several.
- 3
Set the spacing
A sheet margin around the outside and a gutter between pages. For a poster, the margin is the unprintable border and the overlap is what neighbouring sheets share.
- 4
Arrange and print
Download the result and print it at 100 percent with page scaling turned off. For a booklet, print double sided flipping on the short edge, then fold the stack together.
When to use it
- Turning a long document into a handout that does not waste a ream of paper.
- Making a folded programme, order of service, or zine from an ordinary document.
- Producing a contact sheet of pages to review at a glance.
- Printing cards or tickets several to a page before cutting them apart.
- Printing a diagram, map, seating plan or photograph larger than any sheet your printer takes.
Tips
- For a booklet, check the page order on screen before printing anything: the first sheet should show the last page beside the first.
- Turn borders on if you are cutting; leave them off for a handout.
- Nine or sixteen up is a contact sheet rather than something anybody will read.
- For a poster, print one sheet first and measure it before committing a dozen sheets of paper to a setting.
- A poster of a multi-page document enlarges every page, so split out the one you want first.
Good to know
- The output is for printing: no selectable text, no links, no form fields.
- Booklet mode is always two pages a side, because a folded sheet is.
- Pages are scaled uniformly and never stretched, so an unusual aspect ratio leaves white space.
- Mixed page sizes in one document are all fitted to a sheet sized from the first page.
- Poster mode enlarges every page of the document, and refuses anything that would need more than 200 sheets.
- A poster is an enlargement of what the page already contains: a low-resolution image in the file looks worse the bigger it is printed.
N-up questions, answered
Why does the booklet add blank pages?
A folded sheet always carries four pages: two on the front, two on the back. So the total has to be a multiple of four, and a document that is not one gets blanks at the end. The tool says how many it added rather than doing it silently, because it changes how the finished booklet feels in the hand.
Is the text still selectable afterwards?
No, and this is the main cost. Each source page is placed on the sheet as a drawn copy of itself, so the finished file is for printing rather than for reading on screen: there is no selectable text, and links and form fields do not survive. Keep the original.
How do I print the booklet so it actually folds correctly?
Print double sided, flipping on the SHORT edge, at 100 percent scale with no extra fitting. Flipping on the long edge turns every second sheet upside down. Then fold the whole stack together at the middle rather than folding each sheet separately.
What paper size does it use?
For N-up and booklet the sheet is sized from your document's own first page rather than forced to A4 or Letter, so a document that is not a standard size does not silently become one. A grid that is wider than it is tall produces a landscape sheet, which is what both a 2-up and a booklet want. Poster is the exception: there you choose the paper, because the whole point is that the finished thing is bigger than any single sheet.
Why do the poster sheets overlap?
Because home printers cannot print to the edge of the paper. Butt two sheets together and a white seam runs through the middle of the picture. The overlap is material you cut into and tape under. It comes out of what the sheets cover rather than being added to the paper, which is why a larger overlap slightly reduces the enlargement instead of widening the poster.
The poster sheets do not line up. What went wrong?
Almost always the print dialog. Fit to page is on by default in most of them, and it shrinks each sheet to fit its own paper, which undoes the enlargement by a different amount on every sheet. Print at 100 percent with page scaling turned off. If you asked for cut guides, every sheet also carries its row and column inside the margin, so a stack that has been shuffled can be put back in order.
Privacy note: like every Novus PDF Studio tool, n-upruns entirely in your browser. Files, passwords, and settings stay in this tab's memory and are discarded when you close it. There is no upload, no queue, and no server-side copy. Read more on the privacy page.