Print a PDF: Booklets, Several Pages per Sheet and Posters

1. Check the page size before anything else

A PDF page carries its own size, and it is often not the paper in your printer: a Letter document sent to someone with A4, or a scan saved at an odd size. Resize scales every page to A4, Letter, Legal, A3, A5 or a size you type, matching each page's own orientation so nothing is squeezed sideways. Fit keeps all of the page and adds a margin where the shapes differ; Fill covers the sheet and clips what overflows from view, though not from the file.

The page sizes guide explains points, paper sizes and why a page prints at the wrong scale.

• Guide: PDF Page Sizes Explained: A4, Letter, and Why Your Pages Come Out Wrong

2. Turn pages the right way up and put them in order

A page that is sideways on screen prints sideways. Rotate turns the pages you pick and saves the turn into the file, so every viewer and printer sees it the same way. Organize reorders, deletes and duplicates pages, and can add pages from another PDF; it also suggests pages that look blank, which is worth checking before you print a long document.

A stack scanned on a one-sided scanner, fronts first and then backs, can be put back into page order as well; the double-sided scans guide shows how.

• Guide: How to Fix a Sideways or Upside-Down Scanned PDF
• Guide: How to Reorder and Delete PDF Pages Without Uploading Them
• Guide: Putting Double-Sided Scans in Order: Interleave and Reverse

3. Make form answers and comments print

Form answers and comments sit on top of the page rather than in it, and viewers differ in whether they print them. Flatten draws filled form fields and comment markup into the page, so they print the same from any program. Sticky notes stay as notes rather than being drawn in, because a drawn note icon could no longer be opened.

Do this before a layout step: Page Layout copies only the page itself into a booklet, a sheet of several pages or a poster, so links, comments and form fields on the original pages are left behind unless they were flattened first.

• Guide: Flattening a PDF - What It Locks In, and What It Doesn't Hide
• Guide: Filling In a PDF Form Without Uploading It - and When to Flatten It

4. Number the pages if the reader needs to find them

A printed stack has no search box, so numbers help. Add Page Numbers places them at a corner or edge of each page in the range you choose, so a cover can be left unnumbered; "Page X of Y" counts the pages that are numbered, not every page in the file. Header, Footer & Bates adds text such as a title or date to the top or bottom of the page, or one running number across a set of files.

Number the pages after they are in their final order, and before a layout step, so the numbers belong to the original pages and not to the printed sheets.

• Guide: Numbering PDF Pages - And Which Ones Not To Count

5. Choose a layout: booklet, several to a sheet, or poster

Page Layout makes three kinds of print-ready PDF. Several pages per sheet puts 2, 4, 6, 9 or 16 pages on each sheet, in reading order; it only ever shrinks a page to fit, never enlarges it, so check that small text is still readable. A booklet arranges the pages so a folded stack reads in order, adding blank pages at the end to make a multiple of four. A poster enlarges one page across a grid of up to 6 by 6 sheets, with an optional overlap and crop marks for trimming.

A poster hides rather than removes: every sheet still holds the whole page and is only clipped at its own edge. The crop guide explains why that matters before you share the sheets.

• Guide: Cropping a PDF: What Stays Hidden in the File

6. Print at actual size, and test one sheet first

The new PDF is already the size and layout you want, so print it at 100 percent: choose actual size, and turn off fit to page, shrink to printable area and the print dialog's own pages-per-sheet setting, or the printer shrinks or rearranges it a second time. A booklet is printed double-sided and flipped on the short edge; setting names differ between printers, so look for the short-edge option.

Print one or two sheets before the whole job. It costs a minute and shows a wrong flip, a wrong paper size or text that is too small while there is still time to change it.