Printing not 2, 4, 6, ... but 3 pages per sheet

[.chris.]

Hey,

I am a university student and would like to print the slides of some lectures for taking notes. Printing 2 pages per sheet, even if printed two-sided, lead to tons of paper. Printing 4 pages per sheet makes the slides too small to read (If set to vertical orientation, which is what I want. Landscape is not an option.)

So what I am looking for are ways to print .pdf files or .ppt in a layout like in the attached file. Any help is appreciated

 

[Frosties]

This is for handouts for note taking during presentation? Would it not be better to use Powerpoint's own format with space for notes beside the slides, in Powerpoint 2010 you can have 3 slides, check to use scaling to fit the page better meaning a little bigger images and have space for notes.

In Microsoft PowerPoint, the three-slide layout includes ruled lines. You could try a different PowerPoint layout for number of slides per page (the other layouts don't include ruled lines). Also, you can send the handout to Microsoft Word (on the File menu, point to Send To, and then click Microsoft Word), select one of the layout options with ruled lines, and then delete the lines in Word.
tip from Troubleshoot notes and handouts

 

[citizenzen]

Seems like both Acrobat and Preview are geared to print in 2's and 4's.

Do you have Indesign? You could always create a template of 3-up PDFs placed in there.

 

[.chris.]

@Frosties: The extra space when using this layout is nice, but the slides become far too small and I am not able to read any text on them.

@citizenzen: Just installed the trial version of InDesign CS5! I do not know my way around in this nice program, though. I created a master page and three placeholder frames like in the .pdf I attached to my first post. Is there any way to create a complete workflow for my puposes? There is a picture in my mind of something like this:

1) Having an Indesign-template desktop "dropbox"

2) Drag .pdfs or even .ppt files onto the dropbox

3) Watch the workflow import the slides and scale them to the placeholders of the template

If it worked like this, that would be awesome!

 

[citizenzen]

1) Having an Indesign-template desktop "dropbox"

I don't know about a "dropbox" but this is kinda close...

Placed PDF's in Indesign are recognized by their document name. If you place foo.pdf in Indesign, then you could rename any PDF "foo.pdf" and update your placed file by putting it in that same folder (overwriting the original) where the original foo.pdf resides.

 

[xlii]

Right now you are in portrait mode. If you print 4 to a page in landscape mode the 4 pages should be very close to the same size as 3 down in portrait mode.

 

[.chris.]

Thanks citizenzen, I set up InDesign the way you suggested and it just works . Still not as elegant as a built-in "print 3 pages per sheet" option, but it satisfies my needs.

 

[citizenzen]

Thanks citizenzen, I set up InDesign the way you suggested and it just works . Still not as elegant as a built-in "print 3 pages per sheet" option, but it satisfies my needs.

As a 20 year veteran of prepress and design, it always comes down to finding the solution that works.

Elegance is optional... though always appreciated.