Knowledgebase

When you print a document from PDF-XChange Editor (CTRL+P or File > Print > Select Printer), you have 2 ways of reducing your letter pages so that 2 will fit on a physical Letter sheet. The following terms will be used frequently in this article, please familiarize yourself with them:

1. Sheet- this is the sheet of paper onto which you will print and typically defined in your printer preferences
2. Page- this is the size of the page as defined in the PDF document.
3. Cell- an arbitrary boundary created by the application in order to rotate/orient pages
4. Composition- an arbitrary boundary that encompasses potentially many pages and sheets that can be used to control the layout of multiple pages that cross multiple sheets. Typically after printing the sheets can be physically joined together to make one large continuous image.

Typically a Letter page in a PDF document Will be in Portrait layout, and this method works for Landscape documents as well - just reverse the logic.

The first thing to notice is that the text for Auto-rotate will change depending on the selection you have made for Type. If you select None, Fit to printer margins, Reduce to printer margins or Custom Scale your Auto-rotate options will be based on rotating the sheets:

If you select Scaling Type as Tile large pages or Tile all pages, the Auto-rotate will be related to the composition:

If you select Multiple Pages per sheet or Booklet the Auto-rotate will be related to the cell:

There are 2 ways to approach this, by either changing the paper from Portrait to Landscape or not. To illustrate we will use Multiple Pages per Sheet to print a Letter document at half scale side by side on a single Letter sheet.

Method 1 - Leave the orientation of the paper as Portrait

The order in which rows and columns are specified here is key as it will dramatically change the printed result. Auto-rotate page in cell means that only PDF-page is rotated INSIDE a cell while the sheets are not rotated. If you set Type > Multiple pages per sheet, Pages per Sheet > Custom [drop down menu] > 2 by 1, the sheet will be divided vertically into two cells.The pdf page can only be rotated inside a cell, but it is already rotated and there is no more empty space for rotation (See the below image for an example).

To circumvent this, you can set: "Scaling Type" > Multiple pages per sheet > Custom 1 by 2 (1-Column, 2-Rows). The sheet will then be divided horizontally into two cells. As the pdf-page can only be rotated inside a cell, we now have some empty space for rotation, that would be why the pdf-page can be rotated inside a cell (See below image for an example).

Method 2 - Change the orientation of the paper to Landscape

By changing the orientation of the paper in the printer preferences for your physical printer from Portrait to Landscape and adjusting the tiling, you can achieve this more simply. Setup your options as below, and then click the highlighted Page Setup... button to open the Page setup Dialog.

Page Placement and Scaling> Type [drop down menu], Multiple Pages per sheet Pages per sheet [drop down menu] > Custom > 2 by 1.

Ensure your Orientation is set to Landscape:

This will give us the same results as the first method, without the need to auto-rotate.

When you go to print the document from PDF-XChange Viewer (CTRL+P or File --> Print --> Select Printer) you have 2 ways of reducing your letter pages so that 2 will fit on a physical Letter sheet, and we will address these soon. First we need to understand the definitions of 4 terms we will use here:

1. Sheet - this is the sheet of paper onto which you will print and typically defined in your printer preferences
2. Page - this is the size of the page as defined in the PDF document.
3. Cell - an arbitrary boundary created by the Viewer in order to rotate/orient pages
4. Composition - an arbitrary boundary that encompasses potentially many pages and sheets that can be used to control the layout of multiple pages that cross multiple sheets. Typically after printing the sheets can be physically joined together to make one large continuous image.

Typically a Letter page in a PDF document Will be in Portrait layout, and this method works for Landscape documents as well - just reverse the logic.

The first thing to notice is that the text for Auto-rotate will change depending on the selection you have made for "Scaling Type". If you select "None", "Fit to printer margins", "Reduce to printer margins"or "Custom Scale" :

your "Auto-rotate" options will be based on rotating the sheets:

If you select Scaling Type as Tile large pages or Tile all pages, the Auto-rotate will be related to the composition:

and if you select "Multiple Pages per sheet" or "Booklet" the Auto-rotate will be related to the cell:

As I mentioned, there are 2 ways to approach this, by either changing the paper from Portrait to Landscape or not. To illustrate we will use Multiple Pages per Sheet to print a Letter document at half scale side by side on a single Letter sheet.

1. Leave the orientation of the paper as Portrait

The order in which rows and columns are specified here is hey as it will dramatically change the printed result. Auto-rotate page in cell means that only PDF-page is rotated INSIDE a cell while the sheets are not rotated. If the you set:

"Scaling Type" -> Multiple pages per sheet ->2(2/1) (2-Columns,1-Row)

it means: the sheet is divided vertically into two cells and the pdf page can only be rotated inside a cell, but it is already rotated and there is no more empty space for rotation,

however...

if you set

"Scaling Type" -> Multiple pages per sheet -> Custom 1 by 2 (1-Column, 2-Rows)

it means the sheet is divided horizontally into two cells, and again, as the pdf-page can only be rotated inside a cell, we now have some empty space for rotation, that is why the pdf-page can be rotated inside a cell

2. Change the orientation of the paper to Landscape

By changing the orientation of the paper in the printer preferences for your physical printer from Portrait to Landscape and

Page Scaling-> Multiple Pages per sheet 2 (2/1)

we get the same result without the need of auto-rotating;