Help talk:Downloading and printing pdf files

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Booklet printing with Adobe Acrobat Reader without its additional margins

The "fit to printable area" feature causes a slight size reduction. But you can make your own booklet file and print it without this option.

Procedure No.1: using pdf2ps and pstops

Prerequisites: 1: MiKTeX distribution. 2: An A3, double-side printer. Tested under Windows XP and Window 8.

  1. convert the score to PostScript format typing: pdf2ps yourscore.pdf yourscore.ps
  2. the imposition step: type: pstops -pa3 -b "4:-3L@1(29.7cm,0)+0L@1(29.7cm,21cm),1L@1(29.7cm,0)+-2L@1(29.7cm,21cm)" yourscore.ps bigscore.ps
  3. convert the result back to pdf typing: ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE#a3 bigscore.ps bigscore.pdf
  4. open the pdf with Acrobat Reader. Rotate it if necessary.
  5. print it in A3, landscape, double-side, flip on short edge, page scaling: none
  6. delete the huge .ps files when done

Potential failures (but read the "Alternative" paragraph):

  1. depending on the program that produced the original pdf:
    1. the pdf2ps step may fail. Try a method for Locked PDFs
    2. this step may add empty pages, defeating the purpose of a booklet or large, unnecessary margins. Or it may crop some pages or add lots of black lines. Watch the pdf at step 4 or the PostScript at step 1 with Ghostscript and Gsview.
  2. Some pages may be cropped or have increased margins because the original format is not A4. Adjust the four magnification factors, presently 1, between @ and ( in the pstopps command.
  3. if the original score already has large, unnecessary margins you can partially reduce them adjusting the shifts and magnification, saying e.g. pstops -pa3 -b "4:-3L@1.3(28.7cm,-1cm)+0L@1.3(28.7cm,20cm),1L@1.3(28.7cm,-1cm)+-2L@1.3(28.7cm,20cm)" score1.ps bigscore%1.ps but this requires some time. Same if there is an A4 vs Letter conflict.

The batch of A3 sheets produced by the printing step still requires some work from your part to order the pages:

  1. place the batch on a table, first page up (p.1 should be right of first sheet)
  2. take the upper sheet in your left hand
  3. take the bottom sheet of the remaining batch with your right hand, turn it upside down - but don't rotate it in the horizontal plan - and place it under the sheet in your left hand
  4. take the upper sheet of the remaining batch - without turning it - and place it under the first two sheets in your left hand
  5. go back to step 3 as long as there is a remaining batch
  6. fold the batch in half and check the page succession is correct. Page numbers in the score are helpful!

Putting staples on the batch will be another discussion! :-)

Procedure No.2: using Imagemagick and pdftk

Step 1: Converting the pdf to a series of tif images:

  • split the pdf into single pages with pdftk, typing pdftk your-score.pdf burst output p%1d.pdf or convert it to pbm pages with pdfimages if not a typeset score.
  • convert all pdf or pbm pages to tif with Imagemagick, supplying the right density and the best threshold. You might want to take this opportunity to reduce the margins, clean some pages etc.
  • If the number of pages is not a multiple of 4 create a blank page for the procedure to work correctly, because it creates a double-side A3 page with 4 pages. Name it blank.tif.

Step 2: Building the booklet
Copy these lines into a file named mybooklet.bat:
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
rem first let us make the number of pages a multiple of 4:
set/a reste = "%1 - 4*(%1/4)"
set/a next1 = "%1 + 1"
set/a next2 = "%1 + 2"
set/a next3 = "%1 + 3"
if %reste% equ 3 (
call copy blank.tif p%next1%.tif
set/a nbpages = "%1 + 1")
if %reste% equ 2 (
call copy blank.tif p%next1%.tif
call copy blank.tif p%next2%.tif
set/a nbpages = "%1 + 2")
if %reste% equ 1 (
call copy blank.tif p%next1%.tif
call copy blank.tif p%next2%.tif
call copy blank.tif p%next3%.tif
set/a nbpages = "%1 + 3")
if %reste% equ 0 set /a nbpages = "%1
set/a limite = "%nbpages%/2"
rem making odd A3 pages:
for /L %%a in (1, 2, %limite%) do (
set/a ileft = "%nbpages% + 1 - %%a"
magick p!ileft!.tif p%%a.tif +append q%%a.tif
magick q%%a.tif -density %%[fx:w/16.52] q%%a.pdf)
rem making even A3 pages:
for /L %%a in (2, 2, %limite%) do
( set/a iright = "%nbpages% + 1 - %%a"
magick p%%a.tif p!iright!.tif +append q%%a.tif
magick q%%a.tif -density %%[fx:w/16.52] q%%a.pdf)
rem making the command line to append all pdf's with pdftk:
set myorder=pdftk
for /l %%a in (1, 1, %limite%) do (
call set myorder=%%myorder%% q%%a.pdf)
set myorder=%myorder% output mybooklet.pdf
call echo %myorder% > makebooklet.bat
call makebooklet.bat
start " " mybooklet.pdf

When done, type mybooklet <number of pages>

Procedure No.3: using LaTeX

1) If you have not made the scan yourself, convert the pdf to a series of tif images like Step 1 in Procedure No.2

2) Make a new pdf score with How to make PDF files, Procedure No.5 in talk:Scanning_music_scores

3) Goto Procedure No.1 skipping step 1 because you already have the PostScript format score

Booklet printing with Foxit

Couldn't find a method that doesn't reduce like Adobe Acrobat Reader. Help welcome!

Tracker-software products.

It seems pdf-XChange Viewer is able to do the margin cropping, deskewing, page insersion/deletion, booklet etc jobs. www.tracker-software Is anybody capable to write a page explaining its features?