Booklet & Pages per Sheet

How to print a PDF as a booklet

1. Choose the PDF (or drop it on the box). A locked PDF opens with its password. Every page is used; for only some, tick Only some pages and type them, such as 1-8, 10.
2. Choose Booklet. Every sheet appears on the right as it will print, both sides, with the page numbers on it, before anything is made.
3. Say how your printer prints: both sides (and whether it turns the paper over the short edge, the usual, or the long edge), or one side at a time.
4. Choose the paper: A4 makes an A5 booklet, A3 an A4 booklet. Letter, Legal or a size you type work too.
5. Tap Make the booklet, then Print, Download or Share.
6. Print at Actual size / 100%. With a printer that prints both sides, choose Two-sided, Flip on short edge. Fold the stack in half, the first page outside, and staple twice on the fold.

Everything happens in your browser: the PDF is never uploaded to ap7am or anywhere else. The new file keeps your PDF's name, such as notes-booklet.pdf.

Printing on a printer that prints one side

Choose One side at a time. You get two files, fronts and backs, and the steps: print the fronts, put the printed sheets back in the tray turned over, print the backs. Printers feed paper differently, so try the first sheet or two first. If a back comes out upside down or in the wrong order, tick Backs upside down or Backs in reverse order under More choices and make it again: the tool remembers nothing, so note what your printer needs.

ఒకవైపే ప్రింట్ చేసే ప్రింటర్ అయితే: ముందు ముందువైపు పేజీలు, తర్వాత కాగితాలు తిప్పి వెనుకవైపు పేజీలు.

The booklet's page order

• Each sheet carries four pages, two on each side, so the pages are made a multiple of four with blank pages, at the end, or before the last page when you keep it as the back cover. The page says how many blanks were added.
• A stapler goes through about 10 sheets (40 pages). For a longer PDF, choose Booklets of 4 to 6 sheets: fold and staple each booklet, then stack them in order, as books are bound.
• Right to left makes a booklet that opens the other way, for Urdu or Arabic.
• Landscape pages (slides) make a booklet that opens upwards, like a wall calendar: two pages one above the other on an upright sheet.
• Creep, for thick booklets: folded, the inner sheets stick out a little at the open edge. Creep moves the pages of each inner sheet towards the fold by the paper's thickness (0.1 mm for 80 gsm office paper), so the edges line up once the booklet is trimmed.

Pages per sheet and copies on a sheet

• Pages per sheet: 2, 4, 6, 8 or 9 pages on each sheet, across then down or down then across, from the left or the right. The sheet is turned sideways by itself when the pages come out larger that way: two A4 pages go side by side on a sideways A4, each at A5 size.
• Copies on a sheet: each page 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 times on its own sheet, with lines to cut along: half-page flyers, receipts, tickets, slips. A page made for A5 or smaller keeps its size when it fits.
• Pages of different sizes are each scaled to fit their place and centred; a sideways page among upright ones is turned a quarter (its top to the left) when that makes it larger. Margins, a space between pages, thin borders and cut lines are yours to choose.

What it keeps

The pages are placed on the new sheets as they are, only scaled: text stays sharp and can still be selected and searched, and nothing is turned into a picture, however many pages there are. A locked PDF is opened in your browser with the password you type, so its pages stay sharp too; the new PDF has no password. Links stop working, and form fields show what was typed in them but can no longer be changed. If the author of a PDF has not allowed printing it, it is not made into sheets.

Limits

• A PDF that opens without a password but carries its author's limits (no copying, say) has its pages drawn as pictures at 150 DPI: they print well, but their text cannot be selected. The page says so.
• How your printer feeds paper is not known to this page: try one or two sheets of a long booklet first.
• Pages are placed as a whole: very small print on a page gets smaller still at 4 or more pages a sheet.

Questions

Made with pdf-lib (MIT licence), Mozilla's pdf.js (Apache 2.0 licence) and, for locked PDFs, qpdf (Apache 2.0 licence) compiled to WebAssembly, all running in your browser. Licences.