15 replies to this topic

[Robb Brunansky]

I've scoured the Internet for help with this, and so far no help has been found. Does anyone know how to print two pages per sheet in OS X 10.4? I know about the layout option that allows two pages per sheet, but I get huge margins and tiny text when I use this option.

When I write my sermons I like to use half-sheets of paper for my notes, and I like page numbers on them just in case I drop them or somehow they get mixed up. I haven't successfully found a Mac way to print this way. Hence I am still stuck using my Windows PC to write my sermons. I'm using Pages 1.0 as my word processor. Any help is appreciated.

Robb Brunansky
Community Bible Church

[Robb Brunansky]

Thanks for the input. I tried that out and it works like you said. That information will be helpful for another template that I should now be able to move over from my PC fairly easily. I still would be interested to know if there is a way to get page numbers in the format 1, 2, 3, &c. rather than 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, &c.

Thanks,
Robb Brunansky

[Jim Kahler]

You might try a product called Clickbook (Mac). You can look at it here www.bluesquirrel.com.

[jpkang]

I've scoured the Internet for help with this, and so far no help has been found. Does anyone know how to print two pages per sheet in OS X 10.4? I know about the layout option that allows two pages per sheet, but I get huge margins and tiny text when I use this option.

When I write my sermons I like to use half-sheets of paper for my notes, and I like page numbers on them just in case I drop them or somehow they get mixed up. I haven't successfully found a Mac way to print this way. Hence I am still stuck using my Windows PC to write my sermons. I'm using Pages 1.0 as my word processor. Any help is appreciated.

Robb Brunansky
Community Bible Church

That's exactly how I used to print my sermon manuscripts, but I think I used the two-column trick with no page numbers on my black & white Mac Classic II with Word 5.1 (ahhh... the good ol' days, when 4MB of RAM was plenty).

The 2-up printing issue with default settings is an OS X limitation at present--you probably saw how it's calculating page fit by turning on the hairline border in the print dialog's Layout section.

So... it's not pretty, but this may work for you:

1. Set up two custom Paper Sizes in your Page Setup dialog: I called one "Half Letter" (5.5 in x 8.5 in) and the other "8.5x12" (8.5 in x 12 in).

2. Create your manuscripts/notes using the Half Letter size, and tweak the margins, and set up the headers or footers to display your page numbers. You can actually use 0" margins all around in Pages (set by the Inspector), since by the time you send it to the printer, OS X will add some padding. However, zero margins look bad on-screen...

3. When you want to print, there are two steps. First, you do a print preview to a 2-up layout (so change Layout to "2," and in Paper Handling, set the "Scale to fit paper size" to the "8.5x12" custom size or whatever you called it, and MAKE SURE that "Scale down only" is unchecked!). I saved a Preset called "2-up" for this purpose.

4. Finally, if you like what you see in the Preview, you print it to your physical printer, but this time you print to the "Standard" preset (1-up, default paper size, which is "Letter" for most U.S. users, and again, I would modify the preset to uncheck "Scale down only")...

It's probably too many hoops to jump through, but the idea is that you're tricking Pages into fitting two pages with the smallest margins OS X allows on an imaginary 8.5" tall page, and then having Preview do the slight scale to 8.5x11.

And due to the scaling and the general lack of feeding precision in consumer printers, you will probably find that cutting these pages in half won't give you two identical pages, margins-wise, but it should be serviceable.

Hardly Mac-like, but where there's a will, there's a way...

[rev.ken.han]

Try CocoaBooklet from:

http://www.iconus.ch...n/cocoabooklet/

It's a nice little app that just might suit your needs.

[jpkang]

Try CocoaBooklet from:

http://www.iconus.ch...n/cocoabooklet/

It's a nice little app that just might suit your needs.

I'd forgotten about this, but it still has some drawbacks, since it will shrink letter size to half-letter and the font becomes less readable... I guess you can boost your type size right before printing to compensate (but if you have your pages and breaks carefully formatted, it's not ideal), or work all the time in 18 pt or something. Also, if one's document is not an exact multiple of 4, you will end up with blank half-pages, and you'll have to do a bit of reshuffling after printing and cutting to get the pages into the logical order in a stack.

Edited by jpkang, 26 February 2006 - 12:09 AM.

[Robb Brunansky]

I really appreciate all the tips on here. The 1a/1b process works, but as I said, is not ideal. The work around by jpkang comes the closest to doing what I want it to do. It is quite a lengthy process, though. The Cocoa Booklet has the bugs noted. The one area I'd really like to see improvement in OS X 10.5 Leopard is printing options, perhaps a "Print Selection" option integrated in by default, instead of having to download freeware to get it, and this layout option in Tiger actually working like you'd expect it to work. Thanks for everyone's time and effort. If you have any other ideas that will "just work" let me know. Hopefully it would benefit others as well.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Robb Brunansky
Community Bible Church

[Jim Kahler]

Have you looked at Clickbook yet (see my former post) — I use it to do just what you are describing, and it does just work. It does not have the problems of Cocoa Booklet and it has about every printing format imaginable. It also automatically increases the font size to fill up the page in half-page format

[Robb Brunansky]

Jim,

I have looked at the website. I wish there was a free trial download for Mac OS X like there is for Windows. The big drawback for me on that program is the price: $50. By the time I purchase that and iWork I've spent almost as much as I would spend on Office 2004 Academic Version (my wife works at a University, which has some nice benefits), which I believe would accomplish the same thing and give me Excel (although then I'd have to tolerate MS software on my Mac - when one advantage to the Mac is not having to deal with MS by and large).

Do you know of a way to get a free trial version of ClickBook?

Thanks,
Robb

[Mick Matousek]

... I would spend on Office 2004 Academic Version (my wife works at a University, which has some nice benefits), which I believe would accomplish the same thing and give me Excel (although then I'd have to tolerate MS software on my Mac - when one advantage to the Mac is not having to deal with MS by and large).

Not to cut too fine a line, but I'm not sure that academic perk applies to your use. Per microsoft website: "Full and part time faculty and staff of qualified educational institutions may acquire Microsoft Academic Edition full packaged product (boxed retail product) for work and personal use at special pricing."

http://www.microsoft...cdiscounts.mspx

[Robb Brunansky]

I haven't research the Mac version of Office, but I know for Office 2003 S&T version it applies to up to three PCs in your home. My wife is full time staff at a qualifying institution, so I know she qualifies our household for purchase. Licensing is an interesting and important question, so I appreciate your input. If I ever decide to purchase Office 2004, I'll look at it more closely.

Edited by Robb Brunansky, 27 February 2006 - 01:36 PM.

[Martin Shields]

I suspect one problem you face with printing multiple pages is the US Letter paper size, whereas the ISO paper sizes (such as A4) are designed such that folding an A4 sheet in half creates paper which is A5 in size. So two scaled pages fit perfectly on one A4 sheet.

[rev.ken.han]

This may be relevant.

http://www.macosxhin...250942#comments

[Robb Brunansky]

Today I went to an iWork '06 training session, and they were able to resolve this problem for me. The issue was actually with my printer! If I set up an HP laserjet as my printer, then choose two pages per sheet, output to letter size, click print preview, I get exactly what I need. Then from Preview I have to select my real printer (an HP InkJet) and print from Preview. The odd thing about this problem is that, even if I had the HP LaserJet, I would still have to go through Preview. From Pages it doesn't output it correctly.

If anyone else is having this problem, I would recommend installing an HP LaserJet and "tricking" OS X into formatting the document for that printer, and then from Preview switching back to your original printer. Thanks for everyone's input!

[William Cross]

Anyone discovered a better, easier way to do this in Pages 09 using 10.6.6?

Mainly printing half sheet sermon notes from Pages with page numbers automatically inserted.

I can't figure out how you add a printer without plugging one in.


If I make a 5.5 x 8.5 page and then tell Pages to print 2up on a Letter Size it shrinks the page to some strange size instead of filling up the 8.5x11.

Edited by William Cross, 02 March 2011 - 05:30 PM.