Printing Multiple-Up Pages

Multiple up is a printer’s term for printing two or more pages of data on one side of a sheet, which is possible with your print server printers and PPFA formatting. The steps used in this example are:

1. Change the print direction of the logical page to one of the landscape presentations.
2. Conceptually divide the sheet of paper into parts, one for each multiple-up page (subpage).
3. Create a PRINTLINE position at the top of each multiple-up page.

This example assumes the existence of a line-data file with carriage control 1 characters after records 4, 7, and 11. Each carriage control 1 character begins a new page. Because there are really four pages on the sheet, a skip-to-channel 1 must be used four times. The fifth channel 1 character causes a page eject and the beginning of a new physical sheet. The PPFA commands that follow are for one version of a multiple-up page. This set of commands creates a page layout like the one shown in Figure Multiple-Up Page Layout (the physical sheet is not shown).

FORMDEF MULTUP
        OFFSET 1 IN .5 IN ;
SETUNITS LINESP 4 LPI ;
PAGEDEF  MULTUP1
         WIDTH 10 IN
         HEIGHT 8 IN
         DIRECTION DOWN ;         /*FOR LANDSCAPE PRESENTATION  */
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*PAGE 1                      */
            POSITION 1 IN 1.5 IN
            REPEAT 6 ;
            ENDSUBPAGE ;
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*PAGE 2                      */
            POSITION 1 IN 5.5 IN
            REPEAT 6 ;
            ENDSUBPAGE ;
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*PAGE 3                      */
            POSITION 6 IN 1.5 IN
            REPEAT 6 ;
            ENDSUBPAGE ;
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*PAGE 4                      */
            POSITION  6 IN 5.5 IN
            REPEAT 6 ;

Multiple-Up Page Layout

The DOWN PRINTLINE direction creates a page with a landscape presentation typical of multiple-up printing. Individual PRINTLINEs are specified for the initial lines of the four pages. Ensure that the lines of each page fit in the space designated by the use of a small font.

The next set of commands alters the sequence of pages.

FORMDEF MULTUP
  OFFSET 1 IN .5 IN ;
SETUNITS LINESP 4 LPI ;
PAGEDEF MULTUP2
        WIDTH 10 IN
        HEIGHT 8 IN
        DIRECTION DOWN ;
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*  PAGE 1   */
            POSITION 1 IN 1.5 IN
            REPEAT 4 ;
            ENDSUBPAGE ;
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*  PAGE 2   */
            POSITION 6 IN 1.5 IN
            REPEAT 4 ;
            ENDSUBPAGE ;
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*  PAGE 3   */
            POSITION 1 IN 5.5 IN
            REPEAT 4 ;
            ENDSUBPAGE ;
  PRINTLINE CHANNEL 1             /*  PAGE 4   */
            POSITION  6 IN 5.5 IN
            REPEAT 4 ;

Here, the upper-right and lower-left pages have been reversed by reversing the position controls for the second and third printlines.

The next figure shows the changed printout resulting from the page definition command changes. Once you have set up your basic page definition, changes such as this become easy.

Multiple-Up Page Layout after Page Definition Modification