How do shrink the margins when printing multiple pages per sheet?

December 8, 2022 5:38 PM

Is there a way to reduce the internal margins when I'm printing multiple pages per sheet? Basically, reducing the space here. I have a MFCL6700DW printer, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious option in the printer interface here. I could also "print" the word doc to PDF if that makes it easier. I'm on a mac, but could also probably get this file to a PC.
posted by davidstandaford to Technology (9 answers total)

I just tried a test (using Keynote on MacOS), doing a 6-up printout. I think the results will be the same for Word:

It appears that when the aspect ratio of the page you are printing is an even multiple of the width/height of the combined page, you get small or zero margins.

When the aspect ratio does not match, you can get medium or big margins.

In my test, I have a 4:3 keynote presentation. If I try to print it 6-up in Landscape mode, I get 6 large slides per page which fully fill the page with almost zero margins.

But if I try to print the same 6-up in Portrait mode, I get 6 small slides per page, and about 1/3 of the page is blank space.

TLDR: adjust the page width and height on the source document, and try fiddling with Portrait vs. Landscape print modes.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:46 PM on December 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think the most straightforward way to do this would be to shrink the margins in your original Word document. (Then if necessary, after selecting the Pages per Sheet in the Layout panel of the print dialogue, click "Scale to Fit" and "Print Entire Image" in the Preview panel to avoid having the edges of the text on the composite page be too close to the edges of the paper.)
posted by heatherlogan at 5:48 PM on December 8, 2022

Another idea: in addition to cutting down the margins within the document itself, you could change the paper size to one of the ISO sizes, such as A4 - it turns out the A series sizes have the aspect ratio as the square root of 2:

"Since A series sizes share the same aspect ratio (√2), they can be scaled to other A-series sizes without being distorted, and two sheets can be reduced to fit on exactly one sheet without any cutoff or margins"

Link
posted by soylent00FF00 at 6:11 PM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I think the most straightforward way to do this would be to shrink the margins in your original Word document.

The margins on the original doc are already .1. The space that shows up when I print six pages per sheet are not coming from the margins in the Word doc.
posted by davidstandaford at 6:16 PM on December 8, 2022

If it's worth the time, you can print each single page to a pdf then place those pdfs as images into a document that's 11x8.5" (or whatever your paper size is). You can probably do this in Word or PowerPoint. But Pages or InDesign would be even easier. I won't be back on my computer until the morning, but I can do this for you easily. Send me a memail if you'd like.
posted by hydra77 at 6:32 PM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Is this is a one-off need or something that will come up a lot? If the latter I would make up pandoc workflow to convert to LaTeX and automate the layout there. But if it's just a rare need, I'd rasterize the pages as bitmaps and print six of those per page.

This will all get easier if you stick to ISO A-series paper sizes btw, because at least part of the problem is your letter paper isn't designed to scale and preserve aspect ratio naturally, that's why the extra white space is coming in that isn't part of the margins of the original doc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:33 AM on December 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

This might be a Word thing. If I reduce the margins down to ¼" and print 6-up on letter paper in LibreOffice, it doesn't enforce such huge gutters between the imposed pages. I'm not necessarily recommending LibreOffice as a solution because it's a large download and might do … things to your document.

Ideally, you want your page block (the printed bit inside the margins) to be as close to the aspect ratio of the 6-up page, allowing for the printer's hard margins. I used to get paid to work this stuff out, but I've forgotten how to do it.

(ISO page sizes, though lovely and correct, probably aren't available to you. The original A-series spec specified a series of drawing pen thicknesses for the various page sizes that stayed in proportion when optically enlarged or reduced. Dang, that's some forethought …)
posted by scruss at 11:40 AM on December 9, 2022

Idk, my printer handles A4 just fine (that Brother looks way more capable) and it's easy enough to buy in the US in my experience (it's also way better for paper airplanes).

Anyway, here's another idea: set the width of your document to 11/3" and the height to 8.5/2" and then you (should) get no added white space when you try to print 3x2 pages per side on letter paper. You'll of course have to shrink the typeface by several points to get the same content on the smaller page size.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:49 AM on December 9, 2022

In my version of Word for PC (antiquated - it's from 2007 I think) in the print dialogue their is a section "Zoom" and one option there is "Pages per sheet" with the option of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 16.

(Note that this is different from the PRINTER'S own version of printing X-up - which is what your dialogue looks more like. On the PC, you find that printer's version of X-up in the printer "Properties" in the print dialog box. The printer's version leaves lots of space between the pages, whereas Word's built-in version, not so much. However, this will definitely vary by printer, and some printers may not even offer a 6-up option - or ANY X-up option. The option I am talking about is native to Word and will be there, and be the same, no matter what printer you may choose.)

The Word 6-up option works better. The only issue it comes up with, is the aspect ratio of a landscape 8.5x11 sheet divided into 6 is different from that of a regular 8.5x11 sheet (.901 vs .772 - meaning that the regular 8.5x11 sheet is proportionally narrower than the 6-up space, which means that even when you fill up the 6-up space fully from top to bottom there is still pretty general leftover space on the right & left). Still - noticeably better than what you showed.

To get rid of that extra space on the sides of the 6-up mini-pages, I did a little trick: Set the document size in Word to 9.92x11 inches, rather than the standard 8.5x11. That is the size that will scale nicely to the 6-up mini-pages on an 8.5x11 sheet. Also, margins set to 0.1 inch.

Then I print using Word's "Zoom/6 pages per sheet" and it comes up pretty good.

Examples of what the Word printer dialog looks like, and what an example printed page looks like using this scheme, are here.
posted by flug at 10:20 PM on December 9, 2022