How can I make Word print a one-page document multiple times on one single sheet?

windows-7 windows microsoft-office printing

104,739

Solution 1

Set # of copies to 1.
Set to 4 pages per sheet.
In the page range box, put 1,1,1,1.

Solution 2

If you have a document (say 6 pages long) and you select the option to print 4 pages per sheet of paper the result will look like this:

 1 2          5 6
 3 4

If you print this document twice, either by selecting 2 copies of simply by repeating the the print action the result will be like this:

 1 2          5 6            1 2          5 6
 3 4                         3 4

Note the blank space in the second and forth page. It does this because page 2 would be rather inconvenient if it did this:

 1 2          5 6            3  4
 3 4          1 2            5  6

Since you have a single page document and selected four print jobs (or 4 copies) it will print 4 pages. With only enough data to fill the first quarter of a page that will result in 4 mostly empty pages.

Solution 3

The answer do how do I get Windows to actually print multiple pages per sheet? is easy: Set it in the printer driver. (n your example, use printer properties

Most printer drivers have an option as circled in the picture below. Sadly it never seems to be in the same place. Each manufacturer does it differently.

Printer driver tab

How you get it set specifically in office without using the printer driver is an other question. But this should work, even from ms office.

Solution 4

This is very basic but gets round the problem quickly and easily - I copy the page 4 times so the document contains 4 pages and then it works.

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104,739

rob

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Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

rob over 1 year

Office 2007 and 2010 have a setting in the print dialog that allows you to print multiple pages per sheet:

However, when I try to print 4 copies of a single page with 4 pages per sheet, I get 4 pages with 1 page per sheet in the top left corner, at 1/4 size. I've tried using both Office 2007 Professional and Office 2010 Starter Edition, both on Windows 7, with the same results.

I swear this has worked for me a hundred times before. How do I get Word to actually print multiple pages per sheet?
- Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 almost 12 years
  
  Did it ever work while using that PDF printer? I'm pretty sure it ends up being up to the printer driver to decide if it can actually print multiple pages per sheet. Do you have another (real) printer available to try it with?
- rob almost 12 years
  
  I originally tried using a real printer but got tired of wasting paper trying, so I tried a few times with the PDF printer. In the past, the PDF printer has always produced the same page layout as the real printer.
- Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 almost 12 years
  
  I'd say try a couple different PDF printers and see if they behave differently.
- rob almost 12 years
  
  The goal is to print 4 pages per sheet on paper; the PDF printer was just an alternate attempt to do that without having to waste paper every time I wanted to try this out.
- surfasb almost 12 years
  
  Sounds like the print driver is screwing with your print outs. Have you tried a different print driver? How does the print out look if you try "Print to OneNote" or "Microsoft XPS" printer?
rob almost 12 years

I'm trying to print 4 copies of a single-page document, but your comment did get me to step back and rethink this. I thought perhaps the Collate option was messing it up, but unfortunately switching to Uncollated didn't fix it either.
ganesh almost 12 years

4 copies of a single page document will (and should) indeed print four pages, all one quarter filled. If you want one page with four times a quarter sized single page content you will have to alter the document by cut and pasting the first page 3 times. (Add a Control-L or other end of page if needed).
rob almost 12 years

Okay, so the gotcha seems to be that each copy of the document is treated as a separate document, and under no circumstances will Word print multiple documents on the same page. I must have been thinking of Publisher or something instead. Since it doesn't make any difference whether I use Word's print dialog vs. the printer driver dialog, I can't accept your current answer; but if you post another answer with the explanation that Word can only print multiple pages per sheet for an individual copy of a multi-page document, I'll upvote that and mark it as the accepted answer.
ganesh almost 12 years

Rather then edit the first answer I posted a second answer with the explanation. I fear that removing the first would also remove all comments which currently have additional information (as in a page in a SINGLE PAGE document.
rob almost 12 years

Thanks for the very thorough explanation and the nice visual examples!
rob over 11 years

Awesome! That's a very clever hack to do just what I wanted, although Hennes' Jul 25 answer is still important for understanding why this hack is necessary: superuser.com/a/453566/6091
ganesh over 11 years

Cool. That setting seems so insane I never even considered it functional. Another lesson leaned. :)
MetaEd over 11 years

This is a solution only when the application lets you give a page range on a one-page document. Some applications do not honor Postel’s Law; they gray out the page range field when the document has only one page, making it impossible to give a page range. For example, Adobe Reader has this problem.
rob about 11 years

I might be missing something, but isn't this the same as Roger in BC's answer? superuser.com/a/490071/6091
David over 10 years

This is not very clear.
rob over 10 years

@MichaelFFF did you actually try this? I've tried it in the past and it didn't work. It's also a lot of extra steps, which I'm trying to avoid.
G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' over 9 years

This is unclear. (It might help if you researched how to format text in Super User.) What "Custom print dialog"? What fields? Do you believe that your answer works only for A4 paper? Because, if that's true, that severely limits its value. And "1 page per sheet"? Really? Aside from that, this looks quite a bit like the accepted answer, from two years ago. And don't say, "It should work for everyone"; the OP already thought he was doing something that "should work".
rob over 7 years

Thanks; this looks the same as the accepted answer from Roger in BC, correct? superuser.com/a/490071/6091
DavidPostill over 7 years

Welcome to Super User! This duplicates another answer and adds no new content. Please don't post an answer unless you actually have something new to contribute.
EJ Mak over 2 years

Yes! This is a useful hack that I've been wondering about for years, but only discovered today. I'd love to see this option come standard in Print dialog boxes. I wonder why it isn't. It's annoying and non-intuitive to have to put "1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1" for 16 copies of a single-page document.