Is there a way to reduce the margins between pages when printing two pages per sheet in Leopard / OSX?

June 21, 2009 5:25 PM

Is there a way to reduce the margins between pages when printing two pages per sheet in Leopard / OSX?

I am trying to print two A4 pages on to one sheet of paper. In the standard Mac print dialogue, there's an option to print two pages on to one sheet of paper, (or 4, or 6). When printing n pages on a sheet, the os tends insert its own padding between the pages, increasing the margins/space between the two pages on one sheet. Is there any way to reduce this margin? Maybe some plist hackery?

posted by phyrewerx to technology (5 comments total)

Um... I'm unsure what you are asking. If you print 2:1, the computer calculates how each page would look at 1/2 size and then creates the necessary postscript or whatever to talk to the printer to make that happen.

If you were to adjust the margins in the original document, the subsequent printouts would also be affected when you print them at 2:1. So, go into whatever program you used to generate these pages and play with the margins there until you have them stretched as far as you can for a single page, and then use Preview to see how the 2:1 printout would look on the page.

If you're wanting to print PDFs or something else, you may be out of luck unless you have the right software to let you edit them.
posted by hippybear at 5:51 PM on June 21

Humm, maybe I'll clarify - the margins that the printer driver (or the OS) introduces when printing 2 pages on a sheet are greater than the margins on the original page. The driver/os isn't merely reducing the pages so that it can fit on a sheet, it's reducing it more than necessary.

Let's say I have a PDF or Word document that has no margins. If I were to print it on a 2 page per sheet setting, the OS is reducing the page more than what's necessary to have that page fit on half a sheet. What I'm asking is is it possible tone down that reduction.
posted by phyrewerx at 6:27 PM on June 21

Turn on the 'single hairline' border option and see if that answers your questions.
posted by Wild_Eep at 7:17 PM on June 21

Thanks, but I've decided to just get on bootcamp and use fineprint for Windows instead.
posted by phyrewerx at 7:46 PM on June 21

I'm not sure if I fully understand your question, but if I do, you may wish to peruse these applications.
posted by WCityMike at 10:52 AM on June 23