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

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

word 2010 print dialog

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?

rob

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 13 188

1Did 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? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2012-07-22T00:28:56.663

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. – rob – 2012-07-23T07:18:05.460

I'd say try a couple different PDF printers and see if they behave differently. – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2012-07-23T12:15:48.013

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. – rob – 2012-07-23T23:51:31.897

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? – surfasb – 2012-07-24T02:22:50.230

Answers

Saw this on Microsoft's website:

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

Roger in BC

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 396

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: http://superuser.com/a/453566/6091

– rob – 2012-10-20T02:03:39.547

1Cool. That setting seems so insane I never even considered it functional. Another lesson leaned. :) – Hennes – 2012-10-20T02:58:23.507

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.

– MetaEd – 2013-02-14T18:23:12.227

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.

Hennes

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 60 739

Thanks for the very thorough explanation and the nice visual examples! – rob – 2012-07-25T21:00:56.133

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.

Hennes

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 60 739

1I already tried that too, and I get the same result. In fact, if I set it to 4 pages per sheet in this dialog and 4 pages per sheet in Word's printing dialog, I get several sheets with 1 sheet per page, printed at 1/16th scale in the top right corner. Have you actually tried it and gotten it to work as expected? Do you have any other ideas? – rob – 2012-07-23T07:20:46.330

1Yes, I have used this feature before and it worked. But I never tried it in combination with ms office. (I mostly printed code, not documents). - As to other ideas: Just a few silly ones which I did not bother mentioning before. E.g. you are not trying to print a document with only one page in it? Or a selection of a document from page 1 to page 1. That would print one small page and 3 empty pages. – Hennes – 2012-07-23T12:03:57.487

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. – rob – 2012-07-23T23:56:45.027

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). – Hennes – 2012-07-24T00:01:28.483

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. – rob – 2012-07-25T20:30:56.187

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. – Hennes – 2012-07-25T20:49:08.960

i was looking to make coupons. this is what worked for me.

i made one large, and wanted 4 small on one page. click print, then under your printer, click on printer properties. that is where i selected page layout, and click on multi-page. it will only give you up to 4.

(then you go back to the original print page in word) and you keep it on one page per sheet, select custom print and then put 1,1,1,1 if you want that first page (i had 2 pages, 1 for the front & 1 for the back)

i had a lot of difficulty figuring this out, i will continue to play with it to see if i can get more than 4 on the page

Michelle

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 1

Thanks; this looks the same as the accepted answer from Roger in BC, correct? http://superuser.com/a/490071/6091

– rob – 2016-11-09T21:14:32.837

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. – DavidPostill – 2016-11-10T09:59:09.360

So I found a way it can work. I tried all the suggestions here, with a HP 2100 CL6 driver, Word 2007 and Windows XP. I tried setting the page range to "1,1,1,1" and left the other Word options the same. I went to the Properties button next to the printer selection dropdown, and under Finishing chose 4 pages per sheet. Then pressed OK and OK and it came out right.

Let me know if that worked. I don't know if it will work on Windows 7.

James

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 1

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

– rob – 2013-04-05T07:33:21.020

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.

Judith

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 1

In Microsoft Word 2010/2013 use the following printing properties to print 4 of the same A4 pages on a single A4 sheet:

Custom print dialog, type in: 1,1,1,1
Size must be A4
1 page per sheet

When I selected 4 pages per sheet, I ended up with the same result as many people, with 4 pages in the top-left corner of the page, i.e. 1/4 of the A4 page contains the 4 pages.

Arné

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 1

1This 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". – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' – 2014-10-31T20:20:29.800

-2

convert the word file to pdf file by going on the file tab and then going on the export, then change file to pdf, once finish go on google and type in pdf to jpeg online converter, convert file converted file should be in downloads or wherever you put it then right click on converted file, then go to print it should come up with a list of different types of prints you want, go to the 4 in 1 printout and underneath your picture or file u want printed out click the desired amount of copies, then uaa-laaa :)

Michael FFF

Posted 2012-07-22T00:11:35.290

Reputation: 1

This is not very clear. – David – 2013-12-09T19:21:49.240

@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. – rob – 2014-01-11T18:39:39.727