How to print more than one design on a sheet
Pick a paper size in the PDF export, tick Print more than one to a sheet, and the design is repeated as many times as fits. The part worth understanding is why the number that fits is usually not the number you expected.
What repeats is bigger than the design
The thing being tiled across the sheet is not the finished size. It is the design plus its bleed, because the bleed has to be printed and then cut away.
A 5 × 7 in card with the usual 0.125 in bleed occupies 5.25 × 7.25 in. Four 4 × 5 in cards look like they tile an 8.5 × 11 in sheet exactly; with bleed they are 4.25 × 5.25 in each, which needs 8.5 × 10.5 in — it still fits, but only just, and adding a millimetre anywhere breaks it.
Copies get turned sideways
Two 5 × 7 cards do not fit upright on Letter. Side by side they want 10.5 in across an 8.5 in page, and stacked they want 14.5 in down an 11 in one. Turned a quarter turn they fit: 7.25 in across, two of them 10.5 in down.
So a quarter turn is not cosmetic — it is often the only arrangement that works at all. It is applied whenever it fits more copies.
Trim marks are counted once, not around every copy
This is the subtle one, and getting it wrong changes the answer.
Trim marks need a clear margin, but only at the edge of the sheet. Where two copies meet in the middle, a mark runs into its neighbour's bleed — and the bleed is cut away, so it does no harm.
Reserve a quarter inch around every copy and two 5 × 7 cards want 11.5 in of an 11 in sheet, so you are told one fits. Reserve it once at the sheet edge and they fit, which is what actually happens on paper. If you have ever been told a pair does not fit when you were fairly sure it should, this is usually why.
The settings
| Page size | Choose the paper — Letter, Legal, Ledger or A4 — rather than leaving it at the design's own size. Nothing can be tiled until there is a sheet to tile it on. |
|---|---|
| Print more than one to a sheet | Appears once a page size is chosen, and tells you the count before you export. |
| Include bleed | Keep it on if the copies will be cut apart. It is what stops a white sliver at the cut. |
| Show trim marks | Gives you the lines to cut along. Costs a quarter inch at the sheet edge. |
Printing it
- Print at 100%. "Fit to page" or "Scale to fit" in the print dialogue silently resizes everything, and a 5 × 7 card comes out 4.8 × 6.7. This is the single commonest reason a carefully sized printable prints wrong.
- Mind the printer's own margin. Most home printers cannot print to the paper's edge. If your layout uses the full sheet, either print borderless where the printer supports it, or move to a larger sheet and trim.
- Cut the long lines first. With a guillotine or trimmer, cutting all the way across in one direction and then the other is faster and squarer than cutting out each copy.
Where it goes wrong
- Forgetting bleed in the arithmetic. The design size is not the tile size.
- Expecting an exact fit to be safe. If the sums come out to exactly the paper width, the printer's margin will take it away.
- Turning marks on at the last moment. They need room; a layout that only just fitted will drop a copy.
- Mixing different designs. This repeats one design. Several different ones on a sheet is a different job — put them on one page as separate elements instead.
Questions
Can I print different designs on the same sheet?
Not with this setting, which repeats a single design. If you want a mixed sheet, make one design the size of the paper and place each item on it as its own element.
How many will fit?
It depends on the design, the bleed and whether marks are on, which is why the export tells you before you commit. The print layout calculator runs the same code if you want the answer before opening anything.
Why is there space left over?
Whatever does not divide evenly is shared out as margins and gutters, so the copies sit centred on the sheet rather than crowded into one corner. It also means every copy has room for its cut.
Should I include bleed if I am printing at home and not cutting?
No. If nobody trims it, bleed only wastes ink and shrinks what fits. Turn it off and turn marks off with it.